Learn Me Gooder

Event: Filling up a pond to make a parking lot.

Responses:

“Harmful, because the frogs would have no place to swim the fish would die and turn into fossils.”

“Harmful, because the fish live there and they wanted their home.”

“Helpful – putting cement is helpful because it’s making the water clean.”

I think someone has cement confused with fluoride.



Event: Collecting old newspapers in the neighborhood for recycling.

Responses:

“Helpful because it will make less trash on the floor.”

“Helpful – so people can’t read the newspapers anymore.”

So by not reading math problems, the kids are actually trying to be helpful?



Event: A flood brings fertile soil to a river bank.

Responses:

“Harmful – the river bank will look gross.”

“Harmful – a flood is bad, it mostly comes from the toilet and it can be very nasty n-a-s-t-e and it can ruin the soil on the land.”

“Harmful – no one would be able to pay money at the river bank.”

That last one was my favorite response on the entire quiz.



Event: Building a bird house and feeder in your backyard.

Best response:

“Harmful – garden will be destroyed.”

Well sure, if you let the folks from Extreme Home Makeover: Bird Feeder Edition take the job!



I found it both fun and insightful to read the kids’ thoughts on this quiz. And now here’s one for you. Was Victor being Helpful or Harmful?

On our way out to the playground today after lunch, Victor was walking alongside me. He glanced over and asked, “Mr. Woodson, what happened to your balls?”

Honestly, I wasn’t quite prepared for that one, and I had no idea how to respond. Somehow resisting the urge to look down at or grab my crotch, I asked, “Excuse me?”

He nonchalantly continued, “How come we don’t take your basketballs outside anymore?”

Relief washed over me, so much so that I almost said, “Oh, because I didn’t feel like you guys were handling my balls with the proper respect.”

Instead, I figured I would leave the (intentional) double entendres for classic Saturday Night Live skits.

TGIF!

Talk to you later,



Balzac Johnson



Date: Monday, February 1, 2010





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: Blessed are the logical





Hey dude,



I learned over the weekend that Jill has never seen any of the Star Wars movies! I was trying to impress her by telling her about my YouTube video, Darth Vader Explains the Pythagorean Theorem, but I hit a wall. I guess there’s no point in telling her about my sequel ideas – Han Solo Demonstrates a Fourier Transform, Boba Fett Proves the Quadratic Equation, or Yoda Discusses Unified String Theory.

She hasn’t seen these movies YET, anyway. My plan to sit her down with the original trilogy is absolutely Helpful, whereas it sounds like Latya’s excessive use of his new goatee wax is undoubtedly Harmful.

Also Harmful was the decision by Patrick, my new Behavioral Unit charge, to feel up the new teacher’s assistant today. The poor girl has only been here a week, and already she’s been groped by a nine-year-old. Welcome to the jungle.

As a result, Patrick has been de-mainstreamed and will no longer be joining Felicia in my class for science.

Patrick’s actions are very controversial, and I’m about to make a very controversial statement myself. I’m starting to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not very good at math. Yeah, I’m talking about THAT Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

I’ve been working on multiplication and division word problems with my students, and I’ve noticed a striking similarity between some of their answer choices and a famous story from the New Testament.

Just imagine if this was a word problem, posed to the young gospel writers:



“Jesus has 5 loaves of bread. He wants to split the bread equally among 1,000 people who are hungry. How many loaves of bread will each person receive?”



Now, if MML&J tackled this problem the way many of MY students would, they would multiply 5 times 1,000 and get 5,000.

Each person will receive 5,000 loaves of bread.

No wonder everyone ate to their fill and there was a multitude still left over!

In the case of the Gospel story, this is referred to as a miracle, and I happen to believe in its veracity. Not so much with my kids.

On the test I gave last Friday, one question was, “Mrs. Martin has 30 pieces of candy. She wants to give the same amount of candy to 10 students. How many pieces of candy will each student get?”

Every time I saw an answer of 300 (or 40, from my kids who still think that adding is the only way to solve any math problem), I kept wanting to exclaim, “Hallelujah! It’s a MIRACLE!!”

It’s one thing to try to teach problem solving skills and operational procedures. Trying to teach logical thinking and common sense, though, is another (nearly impossible) thing entirely. Back to the Helpful or Harmful conceit, it would be so very Helpful if the FDA would hurry up and develop a drug called Logitrex, because so many of the kids at my school seem to be allergic to thinking!

This morning, I was trying to explain to the kids why the answer to one word problem did not make sense. The question was something along the lines of, “Herbert is 19 years old. His sister is 17 years old. How much older is Herbert than his sister?”

Many of my kids had added the two numbers and gotten 36 as their answer. Franco had added the two numbers together and gotten 26. Of course, if Herbert was only 19 years old, he could not possibly be 36 years OLDER than anyone else. As a living example, I said to the kids, “I am 36 years old. The only person I am 36 years OLDER than is...”

At this point, Priya raised her hand and blurted out, “ME??”

I continued, “is someone who was just born today. You might ACT like you were just born today, but we all know that’s not really true.”

Totally missing the point, Priya replied, “No, I was born April 1st.”

All I could say was, “That sounds about right.”

The other kids weren’t interested in “Priya’s a Fool” Day, though. As usual, the reveal of a teacher’s age brought on more discussion than the latest Lady Gaga costume. (Never mind the fact that this is not the first time they have heard my age.)

“You’re 36?!??”

“I thought you were 24!”

“I thought you were 100!”

And the one that really struck my fancy – “You look taller than 36.”

Yes, children, I’m as tall as a 50-year-old. Way to restore my faith in your logical reasoning abilities.

Seriously, we need that Logitrex, STAT!! Because otherwise, it’s going to take a miracle of biblical proportions to help some of these kids pass the TAKS.

By the way, my balls are safe and secure, thanks for asking. Nancy asked about them as well, prompting me to send her a reply asking why she never writes to me about a NORMAL story.

See ya,



Tall McCartney



Date: Friday, February 5, 2010





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: How I (FINALLY!) met your mother





Hey Fred,



I think you’re right. If I brought Philby in to the classroom and asked the kids how old he was, they probably WOULD guess 12 or 14, if they were going by height.

And FYI, I was just using the loaves and fishes story as an example. I never said I was going to create a mathematically-themed version of the Bible, so don’t get excited. But no, if I did, I would NEVER call it the King Bommerson Revised Version.

Great news today! We finally managed to get Ta’varon and Demontrae’s mom in for a conference! We’ve been trying to meet with her ever since the boys enrolled, with no luck. Phone messages went unanswered, and even though Mrs. Bird actually DID reach her twice, both times we were stood up with no explanation.

The most recent no-show was last Thursday, when she was supposed to meet us after school. Given her history, when she didn’t appear, we were about as shocked as we were when we discovered the air in our classrooms was still breathable.

Then yesterday, I acquired The Phone.

I was sitting at the overhead machine going over a word problem when the electronic chirping began. Everybody in the room froze, in that special way that kids freeze when they anticipate someone getting busted.

It was clearly coming from Ta’varon’s general area, and he stared wide-eyed at me with an expression that was one part, “I have no earthly idea why my pants are buzzing,” and four parts, “Please don’t break out the cattle prod!” I held out my hand expectantly to him, and he grudgingly gave the phone to me. I flipped it open and answered it, but the caller had already hung up. That didn’t stop me from carrying on a one-sided conversation, though, as Ta’varon stood nervously in front of me.

“Hello? No, I’m sorry, this is Mr. Woodson, Ta’varon’s math teacher. Ta’varon is in class right now and can’t take any calls. Please don’t call him between 7:30 and 3:30. Thank you. Goodbye.”

Fortunately, Ta’varon didn’t ask who had called, because I probably would have answered something ridiculous, like SpongeBob Squarepants or Cobra Commander.

I asked Ta’varon why he had a cell phone at school. He insisted that it wasn’t his, that someone had dropped it outside, and he had just picked it up. I wasn’t convinced. So a little while later, while the kids were busy, I pulled up the phone’s contact list and looked through the numbers. Under one listed as “Granny,” there was a number with a 620 area code. Kansas. Ta’varon and Demontrae are FROM Kansas. Coincidence? I think not.

I walked across the hall and pulled Demontrae out of Mrs. Bird’s class. I showed him the phone, told him I had found it, and asked if he knew whose it was.

With a sneer, he informed me that it belonged to his older brother who was in middle school.

BUSTED!!

Needless to say, Ta’varon immediately lost recess privileges for a couple of days. But more importantly, I now had a phone with a listing for “Ma.”

After school, I dialed the number and was greeted with a somewhat angry, “What you callin’ me now for?”

I identified myself and told her that we missed seeing her on Thursday. In a much more subdued voice, she offered an excuse. “Yeah, I been feeling a bit sick. Cough, cough.”

Yes, my friend, she actually fake coughed in an attempt to validate her claim.

Pretending I didn’t hear that part, I told her we’d still like her to come up to the school to talk with us, and now also to pick up the cell phone. She said she’d come the next day.

I asked her to show up by 3:30. “Don’t come in too late, because sometimes I get sleepy after school. Yawn.”

Imagine my shock when I actually got called out of class this morning around 8:30 to meet with her and Ms. Zapata, the assistant principal, in the conference room. Demontrae and Ta’varon were also there.

In a nutshell, the conference lasted about twenty minutes and included the bold, if somewhat suspect, statement from the mother that Demontrae would be going back to Kansas to live with his father in about two weeks. I’ll believe that when I see it. Cough, cough.

Ta’varon can certainly be troublesome at times, but there’s just something about the kid that makes me like him. At the end of anything that involves writing, where most kids write, “The End,” Ta’varon writes, “Have a great day.” He laughs at my jokes. He participates in class. He gets along well with his classmates. He’s ok. He’s just lazy, like so many of the others.

Demontrae, on the other hand, is mean and sullen. He never has a kind word and acts like a caged animal. If he really is moving out of state, I’d love to help him pack.

I did make it perfectly clear during the conference that cell phones are not allowed in class. In fact, the only instance a child would ever need to use a cell phone in my class would be to call for help if I was on the floor being eaten by a cougar.

And the class I have this year has already proven that they wouldn’t call 911 in such a case. They’d move closer to the cougar!

Talk to you later,



Arthur Phonezerelli



Date: Tuesday, February 9, 2010





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: Heinz-way robbery





Hey Fred,



You really didn’t have to include the phrase, “Clickety clack” after EVERY sentence. I pretty much understood that you were composing an email after the first few times. Way to commit and follow through to the end, though. This is definitely résumé gold.

I most definitely support your resolution to end every technical paper with “Have a great day” from now on. I’ll be sure to let Ta’varon know that he was such an inspiration. I know that Paul, Reggie, and Bert will be relieved that you’ve stopped writing “The End” at the close of every memo.

Today was filled with more turns and surprise twists than M. Night Shyamalan’s small intestine.

While entering the classroom this morning, Ava asked me, “Is it true you love –” and she said something that I couldn’t quite understand. It sounded like “cupchup,” and I wondered for a moment if I was speaking with an Ewok. Asking her to repeat the question didn’t clear it up for me. It was still, “Do you love cupchup?”

I finally broke down and asked her, “What is cupchup?”

Several other kids chimed in with, “Ketchup!!”

While understanding dawned on my face, Ava looked a little peeved and said, “That’s what I said! Cupchup!”

Apparently, Mrs. Bird used me as an example in a graphic organizer yesterday. She was teaching the kids to make a chart with the main idea in a big box and three supporting details in smaller boxes. In her example, “Mr. Woodson” was the main idea, and the three details were “Tall,” “Math teacher,” and “loves ketchup on macaroni & cheese.”

The timing of her sample poster could not have been more perfect – or ironic, depending on how you look at it. While the kids were now familiar with my affinity for the red nectar, I discovered today that not everyone in the cafeteria was.

I had an incident at lunchtime with a lady that I had never seen before and whom I hope never to see again. She was some kind of food services bigwig from the district, and I didn’t catch her name, so I’ll just call her “The Ketchup Nazi.”

I didn’t bring my lunch today, so I bought it from the cafeteria. They were serving hamburgers and mac & cheese. I’m a growing boy, so I got both. Then I grabbed a handful of ketchup packets and put them on my tray. When I got to the cash register, I encountered the Ketchup Nazi.

She looked disapprovingly at my tray and said, “Sir, you are allowed one ketchup packet per item, and additional packets will cost 25 cents each.”

I replied the way I think anyone would have – “Are you kidding me??!?!” (Notice I very politely did not include the word “effing.”)

She did not respond favorably to that, so I grudgingly went back to the counter and put all but two of the packets back. But when I returned to the cash register, the Ketchup Nazi still gave me grief! She said that the mac & cheese did not count as an “item,” and therefore I could only have one packet free of charge.

I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to hurl chicken fingers and epithets at this woman.

I choked all of that down, though, paid for my meal, and walked away with my complimentary quarter-ounce condiment door prize. But then, something wonderful happened. As I passed by my classes, Katie, sitting on the end of the table, offered me her ketchup. Seeing this, Ava offered me hers as well. As did Temperance, and Jacob, and Isabel, and even Victor!

Wow. I mean, wow. Some of these kids frustrate the hell out of me, but talk about selflessness. They really know the way to touch my heart.

Later today, I got to have more fun with some of them. Today is Tuesday, which means enrichment day, and we would normally play basketball. However, since it was rainy today (no outdoor activities) and the gym was occupied, we joined Mrs. Bird’s Games Club in her room. I spent the entire hour playing two favorites of the kids – Uno and Connect Four.

Playing Uno with the kids was hilarious. They spent most of their time peering over the tops of their cards, looking like the poodles in the famous poker painting, and they never tracked whose turn it was. When it was someone’s turn, I would look at him, and he’d get squinty eyed like I was about to call his bluff. I had to verbally remind almost everyone when they needed to play a card.

I could inevitably count on Eddie to try to play a red 3 on top of a blue 7. In the first game, I had to be the one to burst his bubble when he had one card left, there was a green 4 on top of the discard pile, and he giddily laid down his last card with a look of triumph on his face and shouted, “Khan-tay!”

“Um, Eddie, you can’t play that yellow skip card now.”

It’s a really good thing we weren’t playing poker, or anything for money for that matter, because these kids can’t hide their cards OR their emotions. They’re about as subtle as a radioactive eighty-foot-tall lizard wrecking downtown Tokyo. As the cards were dealt out one by one to begin a new game, the kids greeted each card with a cry of, “YESSS!!” or, “I GOT MY FAVORITE CARD!!” Whenever I played a wild card and changed the color, I was serenaded with either, “THANK YOU, MISTER WOODSON!” or, “NOOOOOOOO!!! NOT RED!!”

Really and truly, though, despite the fact that it makes for a longer day, I do enjoy seeing these kids out of the context of my classroom, where I tend to get frustrated with them easily. I like being able to take a step back and play games with them, instead of chastising them for adding two amounts of money to find change or calling a cube a triangle.

Plus, I can totally kick their butts at Connect Four, and even better, they’re never going to charge me 25 cents for a packet of ketchup.

Later,



Tom Ayto



Date: Friday, February 12, 2010





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: Be Mimes





Hey dude,



Has anyone ever told you that you have a very devious mind? I’m not really sure I agree with you that it would have been worth a dollar to buy four packets and “accidentally” squirt them on the Ketchup Nazi. The kids are still getting over an imagined monster from one Stephen King movie, after all. Do we really want to recreate the prom scene from Carrie in the cafeteria?

Hey, you know what this Sunday is, right? To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was Valentimes.”

I just can’t seem to get across to my kids that this is not how you pronounce Valentines! They all say it wrong. Just like ketchup becomes “cupchup” and pizza is “pixa.” Oh well, when our own principal pronounces “segue” as “seg-yoo,” maybe I shouldn’t worry too much about enforcing correct pronunciation with the kids.

Speaking of cupchup, how can you still not understand why ketchup is so important to me? It’s like my fellow Virginian, Patrick Henry, once said, “Give me ketchup, or give me death!”

Sure, everybody knows he really said, “liberty,” but what most folks don’t realize is that Liberty™ was the colonial version of Heinz.

Since Valentine’s Day is on Sunday, we had our school party today. I now have enough candy to last until the end of the world (Thanks a lot, Ancient Mayans!).

Wednesday, I sent home a flier with the kids that included a class list, so that they would be able to bring a card and/or goodies for everyone, and no one would feel left out. There’s nothing worse than to be sitting at a desk with one lowly Snickers bar, while the kid next to you can’t see over the pile of candy and mushy cards.

Before the kids left my room, though, I had them write in huge letters, “PARTY ON FRIDAY.” I told them repeatedly NOT to bring snacks until Friday.

Lo and behold, at 7:20 yesterday morning, the first kid through the door was Victor, carrying a big box of homemade cupcakes. Victor is not exactly the freshest Rice Krispie Treat in the pan. When I reminded him that the party was on Friday, and that he himself had written that note on his flier, he said, “I know! But my mom said I had to bring them today!”

The cupcakes were in a shallow cardboard box, covered with a sheet of tinfoil. I was very tempted to start a class science project this morning, to examine the effects of oxidation on yeast, as in cupcakes left out on a shelf. Instead, I went to the cafeteria and got some plastic wrap, and the snacks were able to survive until today.

Victor wasn’t alone. He was the only one who brought edible foodstuffs, but several other boys brought cards. Their listening skills just never cease to amaze me.

We had shortened classes today and started our party around 1:30. I wanted to pass out little candy hearts with messages like, “Kick some math!” and, “Signs does matter!” but I just couldn’t find any at the store. Instead, I got a couple boxes of Star Wars and Spiderman cards to give to the kids while they passed out their cards and goodies.

A few highlights from the party:

Lex and Tyler did not bring ANYTHING for anybody else, yet they sat at their desks shouting, “I didn’t get one of those yet!!” at the kids who were passing out goodies.

Nestor, who couldn’t read the names that his mom had printed on the Valentines, kept coming up to me and asking, “Mr. Woodson, who is this one for? Who is THIS one for?”

Lakeisha and my new kid, Charles, brought ginormous bags of Hot Cheetos and shared them by dumping a pile on each desk.

Betsy showed up with what looked like pink eye, but the nurse cleared her in the morning. At the party, Betsy handed out cupcakes and frosted cookies, putting her hands all over them as she went. Hopefully my class on Monday will not look like a bad Polaroid picture.

I overheard Charles turn down one of Betsy’s cupcakes, telling her, “I can only eat things that are sugar-free.”

First of all, it’s odd to hear the words “sugar-free” coming from ANY child at my school, but it’s odder still to hear it coming from THIS kid, whom I’ve lovingly dubbed “The Round Mound of Sound.”

Katie gave me a really cute little teddy bear that just might find itself regifted to a certain teacher very shortly.

Speaking of said teacher, I asked Jill last week if she could go to dinner on Sunday night, but she said her mother would be in town. Undaunted, I decided to do something romantic anyway, and I ordered flowers to be delivered to her today at her school. I picked out a lovely arrangement of multi-colored tulips and included a note that said, “I’m really enjoying getting to know you. Love, Jack.”

Brownie points for me, right?

Maybe so, if they had actually been delivered. I spent the whole day hoping to get a nice little text from Jill saying she loved the flowers. Instead, at 3:15, I got a message from the flower place saying that their shipment had run late, but that they would make it up to me by making a special Saturday delivery tomorrow – free of charge.

It’s to a school, numbnuts!! Nobody will be there tomorrow!!! AAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!

So why am I emailing you when I should be following up on this travesty? Good question.

Talk to you later,



Captain Dateless



Date: Monday, February 15, 2010





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: Sock hop or hoedown?



Hey Fred,



Thanks for sending me that link to the site that sells custom-made candy hearts! I just might have some printed up next year! I really wish that you had ordered some with your funny phrases. My favorite was “Pete Humps Unlimited.”

Payroll Pete would have loved it!

I finally did get Jill’s flowers tracked down and picked up, though I had to go to the FedEx hub to get them. So I’ll be hand-delivering them at our V-day make-up dinner on Wednesday evening. Not quite the surprise I had planned, but still romantic nonetheless.

The romance will have to wait till then, though, because I’ve still got these kids to deal with in the meantime. One less than before, actually, as Ta’varon announced loudly this morning that his brother had moved back to Kansas. I’m a bit stunned that it really happened and Demontrae is truly gone, especially since Ta’varon is still here. However, stranger things have happened, and I still have plenty of challenges to keep me on my toes.

Case in point – Lex, one of my extremely hyperactive, misbehaved, needy little boys, asked me a very interesting question today. So of course I gave him a very interesting answer right back.

He asked, “Mister Woodson, why do some people grow up to be bank robbers?”

I could hardly help but give the answer I did.

“Well, Lex, those people just never learned to make good choices. It probably started with them making very bad choices in the third grade, like stealing pencils, lying to their teacher, and touching people in bad places. Then they did things like that all the way through the rest of their school years. Which is why it’s so important to start making good choices NOW, when you’re still in the third grade.”

I have no doubt that deep down, underneath that boisterous, uninterested-looking exterior, Lex forgot he had even asked me a question midway through my answer.

This morning in science class, we watched a short online video called “Sock Seeds.” In it, two kids put socks over their shoes then went outside and walked around for awhile in an open field. When they took their socks off, they observed all of the seeds that their socks had picked up. The kids then “planted” one of the socks in a shoe box filled with potting soil, watered it, and declared that in a few short weeks, they would have a small garden sprouting from the sock seeds.

At the point in the video where the little girl started to bury the sock in the soil, Lance realized what was happening and enthusiastically told the child next to him, “That’s where they get socks from!”

I have no doubt that he will go home tonight and bury a dollar bill in his back yard in the hopes that a wonderful money tree will grow.

Still, his confusion pales by comparison to this afternoon’s hysteria from another third grader. Mrs. Fitzgerald and Mrs. Frisch could barely get through telling me the story after school today, they were laughing so hard.

They have a little girl named Un’Kommon, who had a bit of a fit in the library today.

Yeah, that’s her name. I’m guessing she does not have any siblings named Subtle or Low-key.

Mrs. Frisch had taken her class to the library after lunch where Mrs. Drogz, the librarian, read a story to them. This story involves a grandmother raising her granddaughter out on a farm. At a moment of conflict in the story, the gentle folk are threatened by a rattlesnake. The grandmother tells the girl that she is going to get a hoe to fend off the snake.

The instant that line was spoken, Un’Kommon got wide-eyed and blurted out, “She sinned!!”

Mrs. Drogz, utterly befuddled, tried to explain, “No, sweetie, the grandmother was just trying to protect the little girl. That’s why she needed to get the hoe.”

But Un’Kommon insisted, “NUH-UH!!! SHE’S A SINNER!!!!”

Apparently, the poor girl was not aware of an alternate meaning (and spelling) of the critical word that she had heard. Garden implement, dear child, NOT lady of ill repute.

I’m thinking someone needs to very carefully screen all stories for potentially inflammatory terms from now on. After all, a wise man once said that people’s lives are strongly influenced by what they do in third grade. I’d hate for any of our kids to grow up to be a hoe, a stud finder, or a tool of any sort for that matter.

Talk to you later,



The Scarlet Pimp-ernel.



Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: Badgies?? We don’t need no steenkin’ badgies!!



Hey buddy,



When you start off your email with the sentence, “I myself have found a good use for a hoe on several occasions,” I have to wonder if I should be sharing Un’Kommon’s reaction. Larry bringing up TJ Hooker is pretty darn funny. I can only hope Un’Kommon doesn’t watch many old, crappy shows from the ‘80s.

I’ve noticed that one of my little girls, Priya, seems to have a particular fondness for corners. She obviously loves spending time in the corner of MY room, because she’s constantly doing things that land her there. Frequently when I pick the class up after lunch, Priya has her nose in the cafeteria corner. When I get the class from PE, she’s closely examining one corner of the gym.

Today when I saw Priya in the art room corner, I told Mr. Vann that I might need to help her write a brand new book that would showcase her unique interests. I suggested a Fodor’s-style travel guide, maybe “200 Classroom Corners in 175 Days.”

I’m sure that Priya would be able to provide some useful insights into which corners smell the best, which corners are most aesthetically pleasing, and which corners are most likely to provide habitats for creepy-crawlies.

Speaking of writing, the very last activity that we did today during after-school tutoring was a writing exercise, and I know that my brother Zack would appreciate this one. I passed out some leftover Spiderman valentine cards to the kids and told them to write a story based on the card’s picture. Misspellings aside, it was entertaining to read some of the kids’ stories and find that Spidey can fly, he can roundhouse kick people in the face a la Chuck Norris, and he likes to go around yelling, “I AM SPIDERMAN!” Just in case people don’t recognize him from the costume.

Big Jack had written a story about Spidey fighting a handful of “badgies.” Badgies (pronounced “Bad Guys” by the author; pronounced “Badgies” by all others) were a staple of my brother’s elementary school writing period. All stories followed a specific formula. Goodgies fight badgies. Badgies go to jail. End of story. Sometimes the setting varied (castle, big castle, red castle), but the plot always remained the same.

And really, Hollywood has followed suit. Die Hard on a plane. Die Hard on a mountain. Die Hard on Sharon Stone.

This was the first time I had seen Big Jack or any of my students writing about badgies. I won’t make any comments like, “Please stop writing the same story!” (actual note on my brother’s 7th or 8th paper) unless he recycles the plot a few times.

Thinking of notes in red on writing assignments makes me think back to my junior year chemistry class in high school. We had a standing weekly assignment to find and cut out a science-related article and to write a one-page summary.

It was well-documented that our teacher only glanced at the first sentence of the paper and gave grades based on that. So every week, my friends and I had a contest to see who could submit the wildest, most redonkulous papers.

A typical paper might read as follows:



“NASA has developed a new, innovative way to protect astronauts from over-exposure to UV radiation during manned space flights. This was never performed on monkeys when NASA shot Bozo the chimp up to the moon, but people are another case. My throat feels scratchy when I eat potato chips, and Vodka is a funny sounding word. Is my grandmother supposed to snicker when she breaks wind? Elizabeth Taylor kind of scares me, but my dad likes her. Dog food and horse doodles, I always say.”



And so on, and so on, for a full page. Every time, our papers would come back with a check plus.

It came as quite a shock when our chem teacher was fired over Christmas break that year (possibly related to his lax grading standards, though the rumor was always that he was caught in flagrante delicto with a senior cheerleader), and a new teacher arrived.

This new teacher kept the old assignment, and whereas MOST of us began to write an actual page-long review of our article, one of my best friends pushed his luck the first week and continued with a nonsensical review.

I’ll never forget how much red ink came back on his paper. Some of his sentences, like, “But there’s still one thing that puzzles me – there is no mention of the crown jewels!” were repeatedly circled and surrounded by question marks.

Man, I wonder if any of my teachers back then sat down every couple of nights and wrote a letter to a friend, telling them all about me and her other weirdo students.

Nah, my old teachers probably just drank themselves silly.

As for Big Jack and his badgies, I think I’ll write him a note encouraging him to serialize the adventures of his heroic protagonist. Maybe he’ll become a famous screenwriter who creates the next big epic tale (and twenty successful sequels), and someday I’ll get a call to play “Badgie Number 15.”

Later,



Scott Baio-Wolf



Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: A little vocabulary lesson





Hey dude,



Sorry you’ve been sick for the past few days. I would think some of those badgies you work with would make anyone nauseous. Just be happy that you can call in sick without having to make plans or arrange for a replacement, like I do.

I wasn’t sick, but since my birthday fell on a Sunday this year, I decided to take yesterday off. It just so happens that yesterday was marked on the classroom calendar as President’s Day. So today, when the association was made between my birthday and the holiday, Jessie started up a rousing cheer of, “Vote for Mr. Woodson!”

Most of the other kids just stared at him as if his pants were on backwards.

This afternoon, I stayed late – too late – at school. I had taken up my students’ science journals to grade something they had written, and I didn’t want to lug all the journals home and back. What made my stay even later was that two of my former students came in asking if they could do anything to help me around the room.

I gave them a stack of homeworks that I hadn’t graded yet and an answer key. However, they seemed a lot more interested in talking, so there wasn’t a whole lot of grading going on.

The boys told me that a little girl in Mr. Redd’s class had been suspended for bringing alcohol to school. Naturally, I asked, “What kind of alcohol did she bring?”

One of the boys replied, “The white kind!”

And thus began the vocabulary lesson for the boys, as I rattled off a litany of possibilities, trying to hit on the white alcohol in question.

“Vodka? Rum? Everclear? Zima? Peach Schnapps? Triple Sec?”

Afterwards, I was glad they had not said someone brought drugs to school. I could see myself grilling the kids:

“Was it marijuana? Coke? Cheese? Heroine? Yellow jackets? Speedballs? Goofballs? Ludes? Shrooms? X? Spanish Fly? Spinach?”

I asked Mr. Redd about it later, and he told me that the alcohol in question was an airline travel-size bottle of Bacardi Rum. What Larry would call “Breakfast.”

Do you remember that time we flew out to the convention in Anaheim, and Larry drank so much on the flight that he was actually cut off? He had finished off two bottles of rum and was trying to order a third when the flight attendant told him no, adding, “Sir, it’s 10:30 in the morning.”

He had certainly been sober enough the night before, when he called the airline to reserve a kosher meal in my name.

Back to today, I may not have immediately guessed the contraband liquid in the afternoon, but earlier in the day, I was finally acknowledged as being smart. I mean REALLY smart. We’re talking Earth-shattering GENIUS here!

Well, at least according to my kids.

This morning, I picked my class up from art where Mr. Vann was waiting at the door. I reminded the kids that they should thank Mr. Vann for burning them all copies of the multiplication CD.

The kids thanked him and then started singing the 3’s song, with me singing right along. There’s a fun little ditty that lists all of the multiples – 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30.

By then, I was walking the kids down the hallway, and I added, “And don’t forget 33 and 36!”

Even though the songs stop at ten times the number, I test the kids up to twelve times the number since that’s what they’ll need to know for fourth grade.

As we walked, Tyler asked, “Mister Woodson, do you know 3 times one million?”

I said, “Yes, it’s 3 million.”

About five kids in line gave an awed, “WHOAAAAA” – the same sound uttered by a crowded stadium when Blake Griffin jumps over a car and delivers a tomahawk dunk.

Ava then asked, “Do you know SIX times one million??”

Warming to my audience, I replied with a flourish, “But of course – 6 million!”

By now there were murmurings in the line that I might be the second coming.

Felipe then pulled out his big guns. He asked, “Mister Woodson, do you know what is four… plus... three?”

I was a bit surprised by the simplicity of his question, but I replied, “Um, yeah, seven.”

“Oh yeah!!” Felipe exclaimed, with a beatific smile on his face, as if I had just told him the meaning of life, and it involved never having to read again and an endless supply of Hot Cheetos.

If I had had a magician’s smoke pellet, I could have thrown it down to the ground and disappeared to complete the grand act.

I suppose the lesson here is that I should focus on impressing the kids with my number sense, and not my knowledge of potent potables.

See ya,



Cal Q Later



Date: Friday, February 26, 2010





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: No chain, no gain





Freddy,



Clearly you’re just jealous that you don’t have anyone in your life that is easily impressed by the ability to add single-digit numbers. Though you might try your luck showing off your division skills with Nancy up front. I hear she’s got a thing for math nerds.

If you weren’t just being sarcastic, I can certainly sing you the 3’s song next time I see you. I’ll warn you, however. Once you get it stuck in your head, that song will not go away. It’s more pervasive than the Smurfs theme song!

For the past couple of weeks in science, our smurfing topic of discussion has been producers, consumers, and food chains. When I first asked the class what a food chain was, Jacob said, “It’s where families go to eat on Valentine’s Day.”

Close, but no cigar. Not to be confused with FAST food chains, the regular run-of-the-mill type of food chains are those fun little paths that lead from producer to consumer. All chains start with a plant, followed by an animal that eats that plant, then an animal that eats THAT animal. A typical example might be as follows:



corn - chicken - person





It always takes me a while to convince my class that, in the science world, people are animals. Every year, there’s at least one smarty pants who argues, “Nuh-uh! People are MAMMALS!!”

I usually combat this by stooping to their level.



Me: “Is Victor a human being?”

Kids: “YES!!”

Me: “Nuh-uh! Victor is a BOY!!”