"What? Ms. Schmidt? You finished and you only posted 3 times during the whole experience? And now it's been 3 weeks and you're just now getting to us???"
Forgive me. Teaching was a crazy whirlpool of not sleeping, learning Earth and Space science concepts days before teaching them, making lesson plans to meet the needs of 155 different learners, and teaching myself how to speak Slovene and dance the dougie in my free time.
But now enough time has passed that I can post stories as they come back to me... every day something will remind me of that time that De'von intimidated me, but then came in after school to practice his cursive, or that time we... deviated from the mandatory "Second Step BS*" curriculum and learned teamwork and sportsmanship by ripping apart that other homeroom.
But this story comes up several times each day, mostly after I do something embarrassing [or borderline detrimental], and need to redeem myself by showing how awesome I am.
Do you remember this?
*Note: Second Step teaching students important skills, in the most unhelpful manners possible. BS was my own addition.
The football players in high school would get each other to look at it, and then punch each other in the shoulder or stomach? (I know, I know; clearly not the typical football hand)
Well now, it's this:
Except, there's no punching. The whole goal is go get each other to look at your hand in this position, and then just make the "Oooooh dang!" sounds when you get people to look.
And I'm AWESOME at it.
We're talking, 100% legit. Ask me stories about all of my pure ownage, I've got tons... but this is the best one.
Ms. Schmidt learns how to discipline, Case #1: So there's a gentlemen named Reuben (note: I never give real names) in my class... a pretty odd kid, though also incredibly endearing. Well, Reuben gets picked on a lot for being a little out of the ordinary. One day, he says to me:
"Ms. Schmidt, someone stole my stuff"
I quickly look and see it under the table.
"No, Reuben, someone just moved it."
I look around- Tyree is sitting close... notorious for this sort of thing, but he's pretty nice to me.
"Tyree, did you move Reuben's stuff?"
"No! I didn't do it Ms. Schmidt, you didn't see me do it!"
"You're right, I didn't see you do that, but I did see this.
It was perfect. Reuben went crazy, winning, but without being beaten up after school. Tyree knew I didn't approve, but in a way that just showed Reuben how to positively dish it back.
Best part of all? Two rows back, Justin turns to Alexander:
"Dude, Alexander... Ms. Schmidt goes hard in the paint"
FACT.
