Ringing Like a Bell

Let me tell you about a student who sits right beside my desk. I'll give you three chances to guess why he sits in that particular seat, and the first two don't count. This guy drives me crazy! He spends his time in my class constantly looking at the other students and thinking of things to say that will make them laugh. (Mostly quotes from Rush Hour 2.)  He's a classic class clown. Needless to say these behaviors often interfere with his learning; he'll be lucky to get credit for my class at all. You might be thinking that I dislike this student of mine, but I don't. At heart, he's a good kid -- he just exhausts me. In fact, there's a tender spot right in the middle of my heart for him. I've been teaching for a while now (next year will be number ten), and I've learned quite a bit about human nature in that time. I can tell you that the atmosphere in the room shifts in just this certain way when a punch is about to be thrown, and nothing brings...

Last year my students and I went on a crusade. One day I was reading "The Hot Word," a blog on Dictionary.com (I don't like it as well now as I used to; someone new is writing it, and it isn't as good). One of the posts was about dying words -- words from English that aren't used as much anymore. My diligently working students were distracted by my sudden gasp. One of my favorite words was on the "in critical condition" list. Hornswoggle -- a verb meaning to cheat or trick. It also has a great synonym I really love -- bamboozle . I was appalled! I read the short post aloud to my students, and we unanimously decided to revive two words on the list: hornswoggle and aerodrome . (An aerodrome is a small airport.) Our plan worked, kind of. A few juniors at my high school now know the words and use them occasionally. If nothing else, using the words has become a sort of inside joke for us. Yesterday after school I went to the library. Going to the li...

Keep your eyes on the road . I learned that lesson , where I should have learned it -- in driver's ed. class. Our teacher, Coach Burnette, took us down lots of winding country roads, and believe me there are plenty in rural Alabama. My lifelong friend, Joey, and I were in the same driving group along with another girl named Debbie. I'll never forget Debbie's 30 mph stretches and her 50 mph right turns. I don't know how he did it, but somehow Coach always remained calm. He had a "teacher's brake" over on the passenger side, but I'm not sure how much good that really would have done in an emergency. The man must have had nerves of steel. I really didn't have much experience behind the wheel then, and I'm not exactly the best driver in the world now. I wasn't too worried about what Joey and Debbie were going to think because both of them had already driven. They hadn't had too many serious issues. I could handle it. Right? I crept  ...