Back in the Game

Actually, I have been for three solid weeks now.  The new school is phenomenal, and up to this point I've been almost afraid to post anything because the kids were so eerily well behaved, I was convinced they were all going to turn on me at some point.

 

I teach 7th and 8th grade.  The 7th graders are still a little draggy, but the 8th graders are starting to act like... well, 8th graders.  Earlier this week, one of two ACE supervisors came by to observe.  When he left, the entire 8th grade bombarded me with questions about who he was, having already concluded he bust be my boyfriend (that a boyfriend would have no reason to come sit in my class for fifteen minutes and then leave did not occur to them).

 

We read Shakespearean sonnets today.  You can imagine how that went.  In response to one of the most well-studied pieces by arguably the world's greatest writer ever:

 

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I got the following comments:

 

"How do we know he wasn't talking about a dog or a cat or something?"

"Good question.  You tell me, class."

"Well, it's romantic."

"I don't read this and think 'romance'.  I wouldn't want to be compared to a tree."

 

"Do 'thee' and 'thou' mean 'you'?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't he just say 'you'?"

 

"But summer isn't nice or pretty.  It sucks."

"Yes, in Brownsville."

"Well, where was Shakespeare from?"

 

"Miss, was Shakespeare dyslexic or something?"

 

I love my job.