47.

I've posted before about how sometimes working in a junior high forces me to enforce rules simply because kids have to receive more privileges as they get older.  I buy into this philosophy most of the time, but when my students are so thoughtfully considering their research topics and writing contemplative essays about how their thoughts and opinions have changed, it can be difficult to see them as beings that need to be "controlled."

Don't get me wrong: sometimes they do.  (For example, after school I witnessed two separate groups of seventh-grade boys in track sweats attempting to run down the hallways as fast as they could while carrying high-jump mats in from outside--as a group.  I just spent ten minutes trying to find an image online that can do this madness justice, but apparently people are too terrified to grab a camera in moments like this.)

Anyway, I digress.  Two stories in one today.

I was to review before-school procedures today.  It's rather complicated.  We don't have supervision in the halls, so students are supposed to get a pass to check out of the cafeteria or gym if they want to see a teacher before 8:05.  If they are found in the hallways without a pass, they will be immediately escorted to the morning detention room.  To be honest, the system now is better than the system used to be. Without passes, you couldn't tell if a kid had checked out of the cafeteria or not, so people that generally trusted kids they didn't know didn't do anything to kids who appeared to be on their way to see a teacher, and teachers that don't... well, those kids ended up in morning detention.

The sweet moment of reviewing these expectations came from the vast number of questions my students had when I was done with my speech.  "If we need to drop a band instrument off, should we do it before or after we see a teacher?"

"Can we stop at our lockers before we go see a teacher?"

"What if the teacher isn't in their room?  How do we get back to the cafeteria?"

I had to laugh at our work on figuring out ways to "get back" to the cafeteria as if it were across hot lava.

You might think my kids were dreaming up ridiculous scenarios to waste class time. (Well, maybe just a tiny little bit.  I'm working on convincing them I wasn't born yesterday.)  They were, for the most part, genuinely deeply concerned about how they could not get in trouble, how they could do the right thing.  And that is refreshing.

40.

"I'm tired," Luke says as the bell rings at the beginning of fourth hour.

"Me too," I say.

"Oh, you look really tired," Michael pipes up from the front of the room.

I do look really tired.  When I was putting on my makeup, I noticed that it looked like I had either been crying the night before or had very little sleep.  Neither was true, but my eyes were puffy and red nonetheless.

"I know," I say.  "I'm not sure why I look so tired today.  But you know you should never tell anyone they look tired, right?"

"Why not?" Michael says.

"Well, because you know what you're really saying is...who knows what you're really saying?" I ask the class.

Craig raises his hand.  "You look terrible!" he says.

"That's right!" I say.

Michael protests, but it eventually clicks.  And another life lesson is had by all.

34.

"Why'd you put that sweater on over your dress?" Gina asks as she comes into class.  I see her earlier in the day for a different class.  The temperature fluctuates in my room.  I layer.

"I was cold," I say.  

"You're always changing clothes," someone pipes up from the back.  The way he says it, it sounds like I jump into the closet like Superman, emerging in a new costume once an hour.  

"I regulate my temperature with layers," I say.  "It's not like I'm changing my clothes all day long."

"Well, I like it better without the sweater," Gina says.  "We were talking about it earlier.  You looked like a wolf."  I raise my eyebrow.  "In a good way," she continues.

I wonder if my bewilderment shows on my face.  "A wolf?" I ask.

"Yeah.  You know, you're wearing all gray and black.  Your hair's down and long around your face.  Kind of wolf-like."

I'm thinking about how lions are the ones with hair around their faces, but I don't say anything about it.  I'm thinking about the randomness of the eighth grade mind.  I decide that wolves are beautiful, after all, and I'll take it as a compliment.

3.

I sit with Charlie after school, discussing the optimistic setting in David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy. Charlie has been wanting to read this book for a month.  It disappeared from my classroom library, so he finally checked it out from the public library on his own accord.

"My mom doesn't like that I'm reading this book.  She calls it 'the blue book,'" he says.

"Why not?" I say.  "It's so sweet."

"Well, she's a Christian.  And... you know... she has her beliefs."

There are things I want to say about being Christ-like, but I don't.  Instead we talk about Infinite Darlene and how the ideal high school that accepts everybody is not set in the future, it's just an alternate reality because they are still using VCRs. 

I don't know if Charlie is gay.  I know he's struggled with friends and grades and adolescence just like all kids.  I know he could be.  I now know that he can't openly question his sexuality at home.  I know he can, in the tiniest ways, broach his questions with me by discussing a book.  He knows it is safe to be himself here.

This is why I teach.