Secondary School Silliness

What do Rosie the Riveter, Disney princesses, a spontaneous trip to Russia, and Marie Antoinette have in common? Okay, nothing really, but if I put them together, they almost sound like they belong in my journeys-of-women blog. But really, they’re just fun silly stories from recent weeks in my classroom. I had planned for my next blog post to be more literary/historical, but I’ve had all these fun little stories saving up lately, and I figure, why not?

So the first one. This one is from a several weeks ago, in the middle of studying WWII in my 10th grade history class. My school being a military-style (charter) school, we have strict dress code policies. Underneath our green uniform, we are supposed to wear a plain white or grey shirt, or our official school tee shirt. But one day I brought up WWII propaganda, and we’d been looking at the changes in society for women and African Americans, and I showed them the Rosie the Riveter sticker on my laptop. So one of the girls says something like “Hey, Ma’am! I have her, too!” and pulls up her uniform blouse to reveal a forbidden out-of-regulation tee shirt. With none other than Rosie the Riveter on the front! She happily posed for a photo (I told her I wouldn’t get her face in it or turn her in to Sergeant Major for dress-code violation; how could I with such perfect timing?). 

I’m sure I have more stories from the weeks after this, but the only ones I can remember now are from more recently. One day last week, most of my 11th grade U.S. Government class was out due to a field trip or sicknesses. Three boys remained. One of them commented that he has a hard time concentrating when it’s too quiet. So while they were working, I played my “writing music” playlist on itunes. This includes the Return of the King soundtrack. This spawned a Hobbit movie discussion, of course, but in the course of conversation about movie soundtracks, I also mentioned how Disney used classical music in its movies, such as Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet. The one 12th grade boy said he couldn’t wait to see the live action Beauty and the Beast, and the other two boys joined in a passionate discussion of Disney princess movies. For real. Teenagers crack me up.

The next one is from a few days ago. One of the boys in the other 10th grade history class came up to my desk when they were all working independently on an assignment. He pointed to my globe, and said “Okay Ma’am, I’m going to spin it, and wherever my finger lands, you have to go there next.” I responded with a resounding “I like this game!” And guess where he landed? Just west of the Ural Mountains. Russia, here I come!

The last story is from a couple days ago. I still owe my freshmen treats (pretzels or something) for this, for being good sports. During the government class, which is 2nd period, one of the boys glanced longingly at his backpack. “I can smell my banana bread, Ma’am!” He’d baked it himself  the night before, and couldn’t wait until lunchtime to eat it. I remarked that I wished I’d brought something like that for the following class, freshman Global Studies, to walk around the classroom with and torment them by the aroma. For the sake of demonstrating how the starving peasants felt about the extravagant lifestyles of the royalty during the French Revolution, of course. My boy gleefully offered a corner of his bread. “Anything to torture freshmen, Ma’am!” It worked. I had their full attention. And now I need to “Let them eat cake!” or at least some pretzels or crackers, as soon as I get to the grocery store.

Today was a nice Friday. My Cold War intro lecture wrapped up early, so I showed the sophomores some of my Berlin Wall photos and have a little free time at the end. In Government, we finished taking notes on foreign policy early too, so I let them hang out for the last part of the class or catch up on missing work, which led to many fun conversations with them. I need to do that more often. It’s amazing what they’ll tell you when they don’t feel that they have to tell you anything. My home company 11th grade kids generously donated to a pizza party surprise for my NCO (teaching partner, whose last day is next week). One of them took back a bit of his money to give to another student so he could buy his new corporal hat (he just got promoted in our awards ceremony yesterday). They don’t always make the best choices, but my kiddos are precious!