Ode to a Third Grader

Fresh off a five-month position as a third grade teacher, I have gained a lot - perspective; ideas for the future; the ability to yell at a group of small children with ease. But there's so much more to be shared. So rather than writing the next great American novel on the trials and tribulations of being an educator, I'm choosing instead to close this chaotic chapter in my life with a series of succinct Top 3 lists. As a forewarning, these lists are all derived from my worst days as an educator - for humor's sake - and ignore the great ones.

Top 3 Quotes That Have Fallen Out of My Mouth

3.) I’m not impressed with how cool you think you are. Take a seat.”

2.) “Whatever you need, the answer’s no. Walk away from me.”

1.) “At this point in the day, Stephen, I don’t care. Find me tomorrow and see if I care then.”

Top 3 Incidents

    3.) That time the sink overflowed in the middle of a lesson, all hell broke loose and I spent the next twenty minutes on my hands and knees shooing away children and mopping up dirty water with 1/2 ply paper towels.

    2.) That time when, in a moment of frustration, I threw a pen forcefully across the room towards my desk. Except the toss came up short and it hit an unsuspecting 8-year-old directly in the face. Time stood still. Both of our jaws dropped. The ringing of angry phone calls echoed in my ears. Then one month later, the aforementioned kid accidentally pegged me hard in the face with a beanbag so I guess we’re even.

 1.) That time when I wished for something different to arise in my day
      to break up the monotonous school day routine, then promptly regretted it. The time is 2 PM. The lesson? Level I Geometry. All students are seated and accounted for when suddenly a putrid, unmistakable odor wafts into my nostrils. I scan the room and there it lies: a turd. My brain struggles to compute its existence on my classroom floor, but as a mature adult I know it is my responsibility to take charge of the situation. Which, naturally, involves calling Jon the custodian to come clean it up for me. How did it get there? We'll never know for sure. But next time you have an accident on the job, take notes from this stealthy third grader: Shake it out your pant leg and get back to work.

Top 3 Skills Gained

3.) A keen ability to listen and respond to five questions at once. Sounds a little something like this: "Bobby, yes. Lucas, in five minutes. Hannah, page 37. Grace, second shelf on the right. Josh, the answer's 12."

    2.) Sharpening pencils like a boss. They're needed at all hours of the school day and yet they appear, disappear, break, become dull, snap or are rendered otherwise unusable at a ridiculous rate.

    1.) The perfect death stare. Say you've pulled a guided reading group or you're in the middle of progress monitoring a kid. You look up and see young Billy hanging from the ceiling lights. Not a good time to yell? No problem... just switch on the anger and shoot daggers from your eyes until Billy turns and sees the face of wrath staring him down. No words needed and Billy is promptly back to work.

Top 3 Lessons Learned

3.) Kids are resilient. In my five-month tenure at Anonymous Elementary, I was yelling or punishing these children at least half the time. I'd say 50% of the time would be rounding down. It was always warranted by some kind of impulsive misbehavior, but I was still concerned that they'd forever associate my name with an image of the Trunchbull or Cruella de Ville. Then the day finally came and there they were hugging me from all sides and dropping chocolates and roses in my lap. Glad to know that they see around the discipline and know I really do care.

2.) If you give a kid something, don’t expect them to still have it in their possession sixty seconds later. If I had a donut for every time I heard "I lost that paper", I'd be clinically obese now. Where did you put it?!! Did you ball it up and throw it out? Swallow it? Fold it into an origami crane and fly it out the window? Good lord, children.

1.) Left to their own devices, kids will regress into a form not unlike their ape ancestors. I am no longer surprised if, in the span of ten seconds, each of them has crawled onto a high shelf, stood up on a table, began sprinting around the perimeter of the room or initiated a round of arm wrestling to flex their pre-pubescent muscles. Indoor recess looks like the stampede scene from Jumanji. 

Top 3 Responses on a Test or Student Survey

3.) Question: If you had three wishes, what would they be?

     Answer: I wish to get good grades. I wish I was in love. I wish I have 500 cats. (Who doesn't?)

2.) Question: Name one thing you are certain will not happen.

     Answer: I will not get older than God.  (Accurate.)

1.) Question: What is your least favorite subject?

     Answer:  pretending to be a princess   (WTF?)

X Factor Travesty

I have recently bared witness to a tragedy that, for whatever reason, has yet to grace the front page of any major newspaper. I, for one, am outraged. A transgression this deep should be making national headlines. I've spent the last two weeks reeling from the impact of such profound civil injustice. And to think - the majority of the public played a role in this mess, however small, and how they sleep at night is beyond me.

I am, of course, referring to the season finale of the X Factor.

Let me set the scene for those of you on The Voice bandwagon who are missing out on an even better competition just two channels away. After the mandatory number of weeks, thousands of singing hopefuls - mostly gimmick-y, mediocre fame chasers - got whittled down to just three acts.

I'll describe them to you now with all the obvious bias and favoritism I can muster:

Fifth Harmony - These ladies all came in as solo acts. Then Simon Cowell got a twinkle in his eye, similar to the one that birthed teenaged royalty One Direction, waved his magic wand and boom! A girl group. They were underdogs for the entire competition, mostly due to almost-weekly name changes and the fact that they had just met 10 minutes prior. Over time, the girls known as LYLAS (wow) became 4231 (wtf?) and eventually blossomed into Fifth Harmony. They found their sound and a gaggle of devoted Twitter followers in the final few weeks, which earned them third place.

Conclusion: They've got serious talent and adorable personalities. Definitely a group to watch out for!

Carly Rose Sonenclar - Since I was a kid, I've gone through periods of obsession with different music artists. From Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls to John Mayer and Pentatonix, there's always a fixation. What I'm saying is I should have seen this coming. The minute I saw this girl perform, I was hooked. She's 13, has been on Broadway and if Adele, Beyonce and Celine were having a tea party, Carly would be the guest of honor. She's a prodigy. Her raw talent is incredible and her confidence is ridiculously disproportional to her age. I could go on, but what I'm really doing is trying to justify the number of times I've watched her on YouTube in the last week. The view count is embarrassing but completely warranted by this little diva.

Conclusion: Here's where the travesty comes in. She finished out the competition in second place - I know, choke back the tears - to a cowboy buffoon I'll introduce to you now.

Tate Stevens - I have to get up for work in five hours and his story's not worth the lost sleep, so here are the key points: He's 37. I'm pretty sure he sleeps wearing a ten-gallon hat; I've never seen his hair. He sings country songs as well as any ordinary Texan riding through town, but he's boring as hell. He doesn't have the X Factor nor does he know how to spell it. I skipped most of the performances he gave - thanks, DVR! Yet some unidentified group of U.S. citizens passed over Carly's unprecedented genius and gave this joker enough votes to win. I've thought long and hard for an unreasonable amount of time and can attribute this mass lapse of judgment to two things: 

•  Country lovers are blind. They'll vote for anything with a twang in their voice and a spur on their heel. Essentially these people voted for an overall genre, not a singer.
• People love a good sob story. Tate probably heard Carly casually warming up in the dressing room next door, went into survival mode and called his wife. "Shit! We gotta play up this poor man's angle, honey. Cry harder next week when the camera pans to you." I sound heartless, I know. But this is a competition of singing, not sympathy. The fact that you may not have a job when you return home and you've dreamed of being Garth Brooks since you were a kid is sad, yes but unfortunately irrelevant to anything related to this show.  

Conclusion: In my eyes, it's not even a matter of opinion. Carly is, in every way, a superior and more marketable vocalist than Cowboy McGee. I realize she'll go far anyway, but it should've been an open-and-shut case. Carly for the win.

That being said, I just read in the news that all three acts are getting record deals with Simon. So all of the above is moot. You're welcome!