Sharp Relief

(Written Friday afternoon.)

The 8th graders are taking their finals in my classroom in the mornings, so I've been teaching in a different room most of the time this week.  Yesterday was my last time teaching in the classroom I've inhabited for the last two years, and at the beginning of class I mentioned this to the 7th graders.

Mistake.   I thought I was sentimental.  Apparently I've got nothing on these kids, especially the girls.

First, during prayer, they produced a lengthy and moving string of prayers in thanks for me and my fellow ACEr at my school, and for our well-being as we move on.

Then they started sneaking up to the board while my back was turned working with other students and writing all kinds of sweetness.  All the while they were telling me how much they're going to miss me and asking if I might come back for their graduation next year.

Then Daniela walks up to me and very frankly, sweetly, sincerely, says, "Ma'am, thank you."

I kept it together just long enough to say, "You're welcome, Daniela," and send her back to work.  Then I went and sat behind my desk and put on my best poker face.

Then Judith looks up and catches the suddenly watery nature of my eyes and says, in Spanish, "Look, she's about to cry!"

They all went, "Awwww!" and got up and surrounded me and hugged me.  And then I lost it.

Then I told them they were jerks, and one of them goes, "But we're your jerks!"

They've been teasing me about it since.  When I got  out of my car with my sunglasses on this morning, Ivette smirked and said, "You know why she's wearing those glasses..."

Today, I taught my last class for the foreseeable future.  I'm sitting in an empty classroom, for once not relishing the peace but wishing for a few more minutes of pandemonium.  I'm pretty positive I'll find my way back to a classroom sometime, but I have no idea how long from now that will be.  This is strange, because if you had asked me even ten months ago if I thought I might not be in a classroom next year, I would have said no way.  And yet, here I go, off to sit at a desk, not working with kids.  It's putting me in a weird state of mind -- I'm not having second thoughts, and yet I am wondering what the hell I'm thinking leaving the classroom.  My heart aches a little.

Teaching is such a weird occupation, at least for me.  It takes everything I've got, provides minimal or invisible returns, and I love it.  Love it.  It consumes most of my energy, time, and thought, and well beyond my oft-stated belief that education is a human right.  It's the act of teaching, the process of writing plans, being in the classroom, dealing with kids, nudging, prodding, pushing, questioning, challenging them, getting to know them, laughing with them, reigning in my impulsive reactions ("What in the hell are you thinking?!"), pulling my hair out, wondering what I'm doing wrong, trying to do it better, catching glimmers of sanity, the mild shock when a kid suddenly looks and acts a little bit older, a little more mature, and the very normal, unassuming, undramatic* little blip of satisfaction, encouragement, and hope when a kid does well.  Every shade on the human spectrum of emotion, every week.

I'm not having second thoughts about the new job, and I am still just as excited about it as I was in March when I got the offer.  I've no doubt it's where I'm supposed to go.  There are (at least) two sides to everything, though, and the flip side of this coin is very much in focus right now.  This blog is named Theophany because of my constant wonder at the ways God reveals himself in the world, and I have encountered him in the most mundane and profound ways in this profession.  For the last three and a half years, even as I've fought the impulse to beat my head on a desk, I've loved it and felt right doing it.

I have one more final to give and some miscellaneous old work to grade.  I need to tear down and pack up my classroom.  And that's it.  Two weeks from now, I'll be taking up permanent residence in an office at Notre Dame, not a classroom anywhere.  It is the definition of bittersweet.

*This, incidentally, is why I sort of hate most Inspiring Teacher Movies

The Miss List - Edited

(Originally posted May 12.  Updated now and again until the end of the school year. New items in bold.)

In the weeks since I officially decided to take this job at Notre Dame and knew, therefor, that I would not be teaching next year, there has naturally been at least one incident everyday that makes me wonder why in the world I am leaving the classroom.

There has also been at least one moment everyday when I think, "I will not miss that at all."

I think I am actually rather grateful for this, because without the occasional thought to the elements of my profession with which I am not, shall we say, enamored, I would be a blubbering mass of tears and snot at the thought of leaving.  At the same time, if I were to leave teaching and be really gleeful about it, it would cast a depressing light on these last three years (or more, depending how you count), and I don't think they'd want me where I'm going, either.

So it's all about balance here.  As always.  I am the queen of balance.

Thus, below is a list of both "Things I Will NOT Miss" and "Things I Will Miss".  I intend to update this post whenever these things occur to me.  Of course, we all know my posting track record.  My intentions and actions almost never match up.

Things I Will NOT Miss

1. Eye rolling
2. 500 reasons a day to give them The Look.
3. Eau de After PE Class
4. Finding the work I just assigned.  On the floor. Without a name.
5. Being asked, "Ma'am, do you believe in aliens?  It's in the Bible," in the middle of a vocab quiz
6. Having eight kids all yelling my name at the same time and all expecting my full attention right that moment.
7. Having seven kids simultaneously become unbearably indignant because I paid attention to someone else.
8. Writing finals
9. Grading anything.  Especially finals.  Ugh.
10. And grading late work.
11. And grading.
12. Did I mention grading?

Things I WILL Miss

1. The "I Get It!" look!
2. Giving them The Look.
3. The look on their faces when I give them The Look
4. Being asked, "Ma'am, do you believe in aliens?  It's in the Bible," in the middle of a vocab quiz
5. The chorus of voices that responds in perfectly trained harmony of cadence when I say, "Good morning, 7th grade!" ("Gooood mOOOOOrning Miiiiss-Ciiiiis-neee-roooooos!")
6. The (rare) moment when pandemonium breaks out in class because they're excited about something.
7. Telling a senior who went to my school years ago and who I did a mission trip with that he should turn down MIT for ND, and Penn is a good third choice.
8. Pretending I knew the Yankees had won before Jose walks in the door high-fiving me.
9. Having an excuse to get nerdily excited about a poem (I'm trying to get them excited... really...). 
10. Looking at a kid in May, remembering how the same kid was in August, and being struck speechless by how proud I am of said kid for coming so far.
11. Guillermo yelling, "Ma'am, I love you!" every time he leaves my class or sees me in the hall.
12. Kids coming up to me after they finish a book I recommended and saying, "Ma'am, you were right, that book was so great!"
13. Realizing after the fact they enjoyed and connected with an activity I thought at the time was a disaster.
14. Field trips and seeing the kids in a different context.
15. Messing with their heads (Example: "You'll be fine.  Unless of course you fail."  "Yh-- Wait, what?"  "What?"  "Ma'am, what did you say?!"  "George Washington.")

Yes, I'm Alive, Yes, I Still Love Teaching, and Yes, I'm Still Very Opinionated.

My poor mother.  All she wants from me is a blog update, and I fail her daily.  I don't like writing if I don't have something worthwhile to say, which I usually feel like I don't.  Sometimes, I feel I don't have the time to craft something.  Well, that is until I get on Facebook, see a discussion I feel the need to get involved in, and end up writing something I'm actually pretty proud of (in a comment window in ten minutes).

I am proud to be a teacher.  Some of the people I've worked with, some I've studied with, and some of the unbelievable women in my family have shown me what it means to be a teacher.  It disinclines me to make many excuses for my profession.

A few notes: My writing was part of a conversation that spanned a day or two, so I've preserved it as such, removing names.  Also, I have edited out a few choice phrases and rephrased a couple things in my own writing for clarity.  No changes to content.  Please remember this is Facebook, where conventions of writing are applied creatively.



My friend R: YES - Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers
[Note: I have yet to actually read the article; all my comments were in direct response to others.]

R's friend D: "Many more teachers are overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated. Maybe they'd get more respect if the truly bad teachers were let go."
Girl, I hate this article.

R: haha, must have missed that part when i was reading it between classes this morning. but i've seen firsthand too many schools where AWFUL teachers will never be fired... something needs to change.

Me: AGREE!! If teaching is supposed to be a profession, then the bad professionals don't get to keep their jobs.

D: Here's your problem -- How do you determine a "bad" teacher? Test scores? Because that's currently the way the public school system judges teacher performance, and it's piss poor. Teachers shouldn't be punished for students who are bad testtakers. Furthermore, teachers shouldn't be encouraged to teach to fit a standarized test instead of teaching so that students can learn the material.

And the answer of a drastic teachers shortage in the United States shouldn't be the mass-firing of teachers.

R: no, i'm not talking about standardized tests. bad teachers - the ones i've seen and/or heard about - are the ones who show movies everyday instead of teaching (true story: some of my students have watched Borat and The House Bunny during other classes). they're the ones who are teaching middle school literature & language arts, and cannot even write a paragraph of their own that is free of grammar and spelling errors. they're the ones that have no background in math or science and yet are allowed to teach advanced courses in these areas to high school students. i know that this type of stuff can't be easily quantified, but we need to find a way to increase accountability. i wouldn't mind staying an extra 25 min everyday and eating lunch with the kids once a week.

Me: (R, I'm sorry I'm ranting on your wall.)

Two things - One, As R points out, the teachers at that school in Rhode Island *refused* to put in any extra time because it wasn't in their contract. Contract my hind foot.  It's your JOB to help these KIDS. Teaching is plagued by indifference and an obnoxious martyr mentality (although it also has so many gifted, enthusiastic, giving people), and I have no qualms or hesitation saying they need to get the hell out of the classroom.

Second, the undeniable difficulty in quantifying good teaching does not mean we can shrug and let troops of indifferent non-teachers stay in the classroom. Some teachers are objectively, obviously BAD, and they should not have a job. Yes, many of the current teacher evaluation systems leave much to be desired. Find a better way to evaluate teachers. Do it case by case. No excuses for anyone, teachers or administrators (or students, but that's a separate issue).

Some states are experimenting with new ways of using test scores to evaluate teachers. First, they're evaluating individual teachers instead of whole schools. Then, they're measuring individual student *growth*. For example, if a teacher has a kid who comes in two grade levels behind and then tests half a grade level behind after having that teacher, the teacher get rewarded for the time-and-a-half gains of the student, not punished because the student is still behind. Even if a kid is a bad test taker, she should still show gains. It's not perfect. But it's better than nothing.

My friend B: You're both right that it's not easily quantifiable. But anyone in education can tell you that it's EASY to qualitatively distinguish a good teacher from a bad teacher. Just spend an hour in the classroom and watch what happens. 

D: And qualitative evidence is inherently subjective. Your version of a bad teacher won't look like mine. And who draws the line when a teacher becomes "unacceptably bad"? How many people have to agree?

And Andrea, actually I'd argue that using test scores as a measure of a teacher's ability is actually worse than the current system, because test scores really have ****-all to do with whether the kids are actually learning or not.

And who decides that teachers are obligated to do everything they can to help kids? Last time I checked, parents need to step in at some point. Teachers' employment contracts don't obligate them to become babysitters, psychiatrists, etc. Maybe if teachers are compensated like lawyers and accountants, you can expect them to put in big law firm hours. Until then, to obligate them to do whatever they can to help a student, and branding them a "bad" teacher if they want to actually stick to their work hours, is insane. Their job is to come in prepared, teach lessons, give grades, and manage parents. They aren't nannies or afterschool care providers.

R: sure, the job is to come in prepared, teach lessons, give grades, and manage parents. (a) what about the teachers who don't even do those things? the ones who are unprepared, let the kids goof off for 50 minutes, then bolt as soon as the final bell rings (even though their contracts require them to stay another half an hour)? those are the ones i would like to label as "bad" teachers, and the ones i would like to see fired. or at least given SOME kind of consequences, because there are currently none. and (b) i think this article is pointing out (and i would agree) that the teachers who get the best results are the ones who go above and beyond this job description and actually care about their students and their learning... no way that teachers can be required to do this, of course, but it's nice to dream. 

Me: (Sorry again, R!)

B! I miss you. Well put. Sure, there are problems with subjectivity, but sometimes (...too often) it's SO OBVIOUSLY BAD, it's easy to see a particular teacher needs to go. Yeah, there's a gray area. But we KNOW what good teaching does and what it looks like (and it can look a lot of ways). We're educators -- we're supposed to know how to set objectives and create rubrics for evaluations. Why can't we do that for teachers? You set a standard, you stick to it, and the professionals will work to meet it.

D, you're saying we need to use quantifiable data to assess student learning, but tests (usually) aren't reliable indicators of student learning. I agree on both counts. The solution is to fix the way testing is conducted, used, and thought about (which ABSOLUTELY needs to happen, esp. in public schools), not ditch testing all together. How else can we assess how well our children are learning? That's an honest question; if anyone has a better idea, please speak up because testing it fraught with serious issues. It's also effectively our only option.

Perhaps the biggest problem in education today is that educators don't think of themselves as professionals -- and neither does anyone else. The way many teachers perform and the way they talk about their work, I can't blame the general population. There is one real, credible way to fix that: act like a professional. Act like what you do is more than a set of tasks and obligations to check off. Act like it matters. Teaching is not like any other occupation. Multiple studies in the last couple of years have shown that the single greatest influence on a student's learning is the teacher -- not the school, not the money spent per pupil, not the parents. Teachers don't deal with bottom lines and action items. We deal with people. Children. Not just their brains, either, the whole kid. So I don't buy that teachers aren't obligated to go the extra mile. No, we shouldn't kill ourselves -- we truly can only do so much. But we should be willing to work pretty damn hard.

Then maybe the rest of the country would take us teachers more seriously, eh?

Me (again): R, I think we were typing at the same time. Yes -- there's an ideal, and there's a minimum, and there's all the teachers who don't even try. Great is preferable, but good is still good. Outstanding may be rare, but awful is still awful.

   

A Joke and a Very Brief Update

So I went to Israel.  It was amazing.  A month later, I'm still trying to find the words to describe what that experience was like.  Perhaps in the coming days, I'll start posting pictures and telling the story one moment at a time.

It's test day in 7th grade language arts, which means I'm taking care of odds and end in between circulating around the room answering questions.  At the end of 2nd period, when everyone was finally done and we were chatting about how it went, this non sequiter exchange occurred:

D: Ma'am, do you want to hear a joke?
Me: I would love to hear a joke.
D: What did the bar tender say to the neutron?
Me: What?
D: No charge for you!

I laughed.  I've heard that joke since I was 12, but somehow it's truly hilarious coming from a 7th graders when he's supposed to be thinking about his Catholic School's Week essay.

An Honest Prayer

"M., would you lead us in prayer?"

She moves to the front of the room, half poise and grace, half shuffling mass, because she's an athlete and a remarkable girl but still entirely an 8th grader.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Any special intentions?"

J. raises his hand and I hold my breath.  He is my brilliant, brilliant but very, very strange boy.  He wrote a review of Toy Story 3D for free writing one day in a tone similar to what an art film critic would use to laud an indie masterpiece.  In included the phrase, "Woody is a man for our times."

M. points.  "Yes?"

"For our test in science class today.  May God send us salvation."

Half the heads in the room turn to me for my reaction.  I manage to keep a straight face and respond with my students -- though with less gusto -- "Lord, hear our prayer," not because I'm unfazed, but because when a kid begs God for salvation, but only from his science test, you're not sure whether to laugh, cry, or pick your jaw up off the ground and join in.

I'm home free!

Deacon Greg points to this article in Notre Dame magazine, which tells us at last the order by which people are admitted to Heaven.  The first tier of saints (with my emphasis):

To be admitted without review by committee: children under the age of 12, sixth-grade teachers, the mothers of triplets, janitors, nuns (all religions), nurses, all other mothers, loggers, policemen with more than 10 years of service, Buddhists (see Appendix A), bass players in rock bands, librettists, gardeners, cartographers, eighth-grade teachers, cellists, farriers, veterinarians, magicians, compass-makers, firemen and firewomen, rare-book-room librarians, cobblers, anyone from the former Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific, breakfast cooks in diners, philologists, proofreaders, administrative assistants and secretaries, sauciers, mapmakers, cartwrights, cartoonists, essayists, people who manufacture thimbles, and Presbyterians (see Appendix B).

I knew this line of work would pay off somehow.

My School!!

I'm little-kid-with-a-drawing-look-mom-look-mom proud of the school I work at.  Our development office put this together.  It's a fair snapshot of the remarkable place we have, though I don't think anything short of a documentary would really capture the wonder of it.




(For my fam: yeah, there's one shot of me in there, and I'd guess about a fourth of those photos are mine.)

A Teacher's Quasi-Rant on Poetry and a Glance Towards God

"Poetry without rhyme is like tennis without a net."

- Robert Frost

I have a confession to make, before God and all.  I, an English teacher and one deeply enamoured of her subject matter, hated poetry for much of my life and still feel a great deal of contempt for large swaths of the stuff.  It is often silly, banal, syrupy stuff by which mediocre writers find justification to puff themselves up and act superior, because they are poets, darnnit, and if you don't like it, you just don't get it.

Bollocks and hogwash, say I.  Be a man, fess up: you just don't know how to clearly and articulately make a point, so you are obscure and call it art.

(This, incidentally, is nearly identical to my argument against and condemnation of much modern art.)

In college, I finally found a poet I liked -- loved, even.  Then came the "click" that Shakespeare was in fact all poet and only partly playwright.  I had to give the genre another shot.  What I discovered was that I loved the play of words and how great poets, rather than string together random thoughts in whatever self-satisfied format they darn well please, work within the constraints of a class of poem and make it sound good.

I showed my 8th graders Willy's Sonnet #18 yesterday.  When I told them they'd be reading and understanding Shakespeare by the end of the period, I theatrically asked them, "Do you believe this?!"

In one resounding, monotone voice of utter disinterest, they replied, "No."

But understand it they did, and some of the girls were just beaming and squeeing at the unadulterated romance of it.  One boy asked, "Why doesn't he just tell her she's hot?", and before I even opened my mouth to respond, a girl called out, "He could have, but he has to work to make it all fit like that and sound so good, so she's obviously going to like it better."

Yes, exactly.  Forcing thoughts and words into specific parameters forces us to think, to find the best possible way to say aloud what lies in our hearts.  The results are downright magical sometimes, enough so that this formerly adamant opponent of the genre now gives some of it a respectful nod -- and even an occasional read.

It goes back to my fascination -- yes, perhaps even obsession -- with language and how it functions.  I like prose because it is utterly flexible, allowing everything from one word statements to sentences like the one I just read in One Hundred Years of Solitude that literally went on for two pages without an endmark, but poetry obliges deeper consideration.  And, like almost everything, it echoes how God gives us both limitless freedom and unmovable boundaries.

You had to know I would bring this back to the whole "theophany" thing, didn't you?

As a reader, I'm still not crazy about poetry, but as a teacher, I'm trying to give my students some appreciation of form's potential to reveal Truth, because that same potential lies in all writing. 

Apprently, it starts with getting my girls to go all mushy over a summer's day and my boys to envy Willy's abilitty to make the girls go all mushy. 

You take what you can get.

My Little Baby Ansels

To the shock and surprise of absolutely no one, I joyfully accepted my principals suggestion I teach a photography elective this year.  Equally shocking, I got all geeked up about it and made a photoblog for them.  I'll update it weekly with their newest work. 

My kids might get pretty geeked up if they get a few comments (hint, hint, nudge...)

Watch out, Lange.  Your legacy may soon be overshadowed.

Nine Eleven

There isn't much for me to say about today.  Eight years after I wandered dazed through the halls of my high school wondering why no one else looked the way I felt, I think I have sort of integrated the event into my life.  I find in my heart a hollow spot, like a mausoleum or a memorial, where the sorrow is as deep as ever, but had to be scarred over to be able to get on with life.  My memories of those days will never fade, I think.  I remember, and I pray, and I always, always will.

What I am more concerned with how to handle today with my students.  They were 5 and 6 when it happened; it is an impression for them, a vivid dream they're not sure really happened.  And, more bizarre to me, as the years go on my students will of course have been even younger.  I a few years, they won't have even been alive.

Which, to me, underscores the importance of remembering it myself.

Round Three...

After many weeks of sky-high stress academia and life alteringly-awesome people and a couple weeks of utter relaxation with my family (who are equally as awesome), I'm back in Brownsville for year two at my school and year three in the teaching gig. I write from my bare classroom, being used today and tomorrow as the in-service room, after which I will begin plastering the room with butcher paper, border, clever posters, schedules, motivational sayings, Bible verses, and my own tangibly high expectations for my students.

Meanwhile, my community (minus four from last year, plus four newbies) is already having a ball. We spent yesterday evening plotting, over tacos and beer, which room of the house to convert to a chapel.

Frankly, I'm just giddy about the start of the new school year. I suspect it will be, to use the ubiquitous phrase, totally awesome.

Stay tuned.

highlight part 2

the highlight of my spring break

Prayer

L., 8th grader leading prayer: Any intentions?

Me: For my friend Becca who found out yesterday she's moving to Africa next year.

D: That's hardcore!

L: We pray to the Lord.

Class: Lord, hear our prayer.

K: For Miss C.'s friend Becca to get to Africa safe.  And not be eaten by a lion.

L: We pray to the Lord.

Class: Lord, hear our prayer.

Me: (Head hanging)

How Could I Compete?

An e-mail I sent to a couple of my far-away ACE friends. Jackie and Zeiser are my housemates.

Last night, Guadalupe Regional had a fund raiser at Mr. Gatti's (pizza and arcade; kinda like chuckie cheese), which Jackie, Zeiser, and I attended. The three of us sit down at a table some distance from the "cool kids". Five minutes go by before one of my 8th graders comes over, points at Zeiser, and says, "Is that your boyfriend?"

With as straight a face and as flat a voice as I could manage, I said no. So she looks at Jackie, points Zeiser again, and says, "Is he YOUR boyfriend?".

It gets better. As the three of us are leaving, a 7th grader stops us, asks me the same question and gets the same answer, and likewise with Jack.

"Then why did they say he was dating one of you?" She looks at Zeiser, and says in a tone of voice that suggests HE wouldn't lie to her, "Are you dating either of them?"

Straight face, Zeiser goes, "Them? No. You ever heard of Shakira?"

Happy Friday, y'all.

Little White Lies... and Telephone.

A student who was absent and missed yesterday's shenanigans examines me incredulously while I explain the work she missed.

"Ma'am, I heard you rescued a baby from a shark. I don't believe it."

On my honor, I never once mentioned a shark. I wish I'd thought of it.

Little White Lies and the Amazing Technicolor Eyelid

last night

this afternoon
(note the purple, blue, and red around my eye)

Let me just say upfront, I'm fine. My pride sustained far worse injuries than anything else did in this incident. I write tonight, aside from the interesting study of mild swelling turned to multi-colored lids, is to give you a word of warning:

Avoid, at all costs, any kind of visible injury if there is any chance you will be seeing middle schoolers at any point and in any context while said injury is healing.

It's been a humbling day. Comments I got:

• "What happened?!" (that was from a coworker)
  
• "Ma'am, what happened to your face?!"
• "You look like Popeye."
• (slack jawed look of disgust)
• "Ma'am, just let me know who I need to beat up and I got 'im."
• "Holy crap, are you okay??"
• "Ha ha ha ha ha! Uh, I mean... (chuckle) Sorry. Ma'am are you (snicker) alright?"
• "Eeewwwwwww."
• "Listen, you don't need to be in that relationship. Just break up with him, you don't need him."

...And of course, everyone wants to know what happened. I change the story every time.

• Raccoons.
• Badgers.
• I saved a baby from a run-away horse.
• I was trying to build a tree house and it fell down on me.
• You should see the other guy.
  
• Ninjas.
• Pirates.
• Ninja badgers.
• Pirate raccoons.

That's Usually Called a "Wrong Answer"

During a vocab quiz that requires the kids to use words in an original sentence.

Student: Ma'am, does it have to be the definition you gave us, or can it be another one?
Me: What word are you thinking of?
S: (Points to "hermit".)
M: ...There's only one definition of that word.
S: I was thinking of the animal.
M: I don't think there's an animal called "hermit".
S: I know, I was going to make it up.

Sometimes, it's best not to ask questions.

You Know You're a Big Dorky Teacher When...

...you get a grant to spend someone else's money on whatever you want and gleefully flip through teacher catalogues oohing and ahhing over "A to Z: Reading Activities for Middle Schoolers", "Root Awakenings", and Shakespeare and Poe action ficgures.

Flattery Will Get You Nowhere, Kids.

Not even this display of adulation can melt my icy teacher heart.

Me: ...Alright, you know what to do, so get to it.

(A few moments of actual, quiet, on task work)

Boy Student: Ma'am, did you go out a lot when you were young?

Me: (Ignoring the implication that I am no longer young) One, that's not exactly a polite question. Two, even if it was, not is not the time to be asking me personal questions. Get to work.

(Boy student and girl student exchange mischievous glances; I realize I'm in for it.)

Girl Student: Ma'am, I really like your hair today.

Me: Thanks. Oddly, my hair is not even close to your work, so I'm not sure why you were looking at it. Get to work.

Boy: Ma'am, I like your earrings.

Girl: Ooh, yeah, me too!

Me: Work.

Boy: Ma'am you're beautiful.

Me: W-o-r-k.

(Five minutes later, as I'm circulating checking on the kids. Boy student raises his hand and looks like he has a question.)

Me: Yes?

Boy: Ma'am, I love that shirt.