"Is it true," asked a student in sixth hour, "that you once shaved your head because you broke up with some guy?" I don't remember telling this story. For a moment I don't even remember that it happened. But it is true, and so I cannot lie, and must admit as much. "Oh," he says, "I gotta admire you for your nerve."
This is the post-AP nostalgia. They say things to me that are kind and sweet, and personal. We're playing games this week. In first hour, the small class, they got bored with Apples to Apples and asked for stories. "You tell the best stories," they say, buttering me up. And so I sit at my computer, pull up google, and read to them from "Mathematical Aphrodisiac," and they say "Aww..." when I tell them that it's a true story.
Then I show them photos of the famous potholder, and they ask for more photos, and pretty soon we're looking at all of my travel pictures from Kyrgyzstan. It's a love fest. I don't have to make them listen. They don't have to take notes. We just relax and breathe, and enjoy each other.
In sixth hour, we play Wise and Otherwise, a game in which you write a plausible ending to the first half of a not-so-famous saying. I sit down with a group of students, and laugh when one of them writes the wonderful ending "Endless chatter...never breaks the bed." And then the endings get raunchier, and I briefly wonder if I will have to excuse myself, when someone writes "A hoe in the shed is better than ... a stick in the bush." But despite its near triple entendre it turns out to be the actual Nigerian saying written on the card, and so I relax and laugh with the students.
We are post-AP, we can laugh, now, and play games and enjoy popcorn and Fig Newton's and Leibniz cookies. We have earned our rest and relaxation.
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7 comments:
Sweet. You get a 5. Again.
I like to think I'm wise, but then sometimes I realize that I'm otherwise. I bet you have better stories than my teachers, they were old and uncool...one was even missing his pointer finger, so when he leaned his head on his hand it looked like his finger was fully lodged in his ear.
You don't think there's a good story that goes with that missing pointer finger?
You really had a shaved head? When do we get that story?
The story I heard behind the missing pointer finger is that he stuck his finger into an engine cylinder to check compression and it got stuck and they had to cut off the finger...hence the nickname Sparky. But who knows what really happened, I'm sure nothing better than any story you have.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's getting too personal with my students in this late in the year period of nostalgia-induced compromised judgment. I found myself talking to them about the tattoo I want to get, and now they're full partners in the endeavor, bringing me books, looking at websites, sharing design ideas. Good thing there's only two weeks left!
Oh, my kids want me to get a tattoo, too. An integral sign tramp stamp, to be exact. I told them I don't do pain, but they insist.
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