Golden Nuggest

I have noticed, that although my blog as moved to a new site, I am still getting hits here at Blogspot. For those of you faithful readers, or those of you who have just stumbled upon this site, here is my latest blog post. To catch up on any posts you have missed, or to subscribe to my new site, please visit ClassroomConfessions.com today.

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Here are a few golden nuggets from random conversations that have occurred in my classroom recently.

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Student: Miss Lewis, have you ever seen the movie Stepbrothers?

Me: Funny you should ask because I have never seen it. I started to watch it on Saturday but never finished it. It was pretty stupid. It was funny, but I could actually feel myself getting dumber as I watched it.

Student: Really? You're gonna play that card? You're around us 8^th graders all day. What could make you feel dumber than that?

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I over heard this little gem while I was on the other side of the room entering my attendance.

Student: When I grow up, I’m going to be the sexiest man alive. You know it. The day I was born, was the day the world started breathing. I got it all. What don’t I have? I’m gonna be on stage rockin' my guitar with leather chaps and my big ‘ol happy trail. I’m gonna wear that everywhere I go.

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This morning, I decided to play a little joke on my students.

Me: So class. I was talking to Miss Smith next door and she told me that she was going to get some posters for her room. She also told me that some of you had the nerve to say, “Just as long as they’re not Justin Bieber posters like Miss Lewis has.” How dare you? That makes me think you don’t appreciate the things I do for you. I spend my own money to try to make this room look nice and student friendly and you criticize the way I do it?

Students: Look down at their desks tops not speaking.

Me: Setting a cardboard poster tube on the table. So this weekend, I went to every Walmart, every F.Y.E. and every Hot Topic and I bought every single Justin Bieber poster I could find. Look out kids because this room is about to get Bieberized. Starting with this gem… I stand back to unroll... the Official Hunger Games movie poster.

One student mumbled under his breath, "Oh my God. I think half the class just had a nerdgasm." Seriously? Where do these kids get this stuff

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A couple of weeks ago, while playing a game of Scattergories, the letter was “P” and one of the items on the list was “personality traits.” We went around the room and teams shouted out their answers.

Student 1: Patient

Student 2: Persistent

Student 3: Polite

Student 4: Ours is double points. A people pleaser.

Me: That’s really good. All of your answers are good.

Student 4: (muttering to his classmates) Yep, I please you for $3.99 an hour.

Me: Really?

Student 4: Ummm... ummm...

Me: $3.99 an hour? You’re cheap.

Student 4: (chuckling) Oh. I thought I was going to be in trouble.

Me: Well, it sounds like you're already in enough trouble if you’re only charging $3.99 an hour.

Student 4: Miss Lewis…

Me: What? I’m just saying, your services must not be very good.

New Posts on my New Site

It case you've missed it, I have moved to a brand new site. Check out my latest posts: "Hot for Teacher," "It's all About Poop," and "Breaking News: The Titanic is Gay." Classroomconfessions.com Thanks for reading!

Technology for Dummies

Check out my latest post, "Technology for Dummies," at my new blog address: Classroomconfessions.com

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you there.
Miss Lewis

Classroom Confessions has Moved

It's official- Classroom Confessions has found a new home at http://classroomconfessions.com/

Same great stories, brand new site.

Some of you might wonder, why the change?

I use Blogger for several sites with students, and I want to make sure there is enough separation between them. I like the look of wordpress, I can do more with the site, and let's face it... I like change.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing more stories with you soon at classroomconfessons.com

Parent Teacher Conferences... round 2

One of my favorite students stopped by between, setting up for the school book fair, and conference time to hang out. After the events of our last Parent Teacher Conferences, and the enlightening conversation about the Chilean Miner rescue, I immediately got my computer out and started typing. I couldn’t keep up, but here’s a taste of what ensued:

Student: “People think I’m a nerd. I’m not really a nerd. I just know things… but I do want to get one of those ‘NERD’ shirts like yours though. Oh my mom had a friend who was in gifted-and-talented when she was in high school. I’ve known her forever. They paid her way to go to college. Hey Miss Lewis, do you have your iPad with you? I was going to ask you if I could play with it.”

Announcement: “Mr. Vogel, Please come to the office.”

Student: “Hee hee hee. Did they just say Mr. Vogel?”

Me: “Yes. Yes they did. Why do you know who Mr. Vogel is?”

Student: “No, it’s just funny because that’s a car.”

Me: “Nope. That’s Volvo.”

I suggest that the student get out a netbook and work on our class blog or play some games. It gets quiet… for a while…

Enter four girls with no place to go. They also get on a computer. For the next hour, I listen to a whole lot of Katy Perry being “sung” at me, along with a slew of, “Come here and look at this” as they Google pictures of Justin Bieber and Taylor Lautner to ogle over. Then the musical renditions of Evenessance starts…

Skip ahead 20 minutes. The girls are driving me insane so I suggest they go elsewhere. They do. It’s quiet.

Me: “So what are you going to do over break?

Student: “I’m going to go to my uncle’s. I’m just going to hang. Probably get an Adventureland pass. Last year I didn’t go much, but I’m thinking this summer I’ll go on Monday through Thursday, not every day, maybe just Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays, but I like Friday's too. Hey How do you get carpal tunnel from texting? Because on 1,000 Ways to Die there was a lady who had type 3 carpal tunnel from texting and she went to get some stress relief from acupuncture and she went to grab her phone and she fell and the needle went through her head. Oh, I like that Final Destination movie. It's crazy. Well, I don't like 2, 3, or 4; I like the first one. It was crazy. I want to see the new movie Paul with the alien. It looks really good but I’m not old enough to go. I’ll see if my step-mom can take me. I’ll go with her if she wants to see it. But she won’t get it. She’s old. She’s not young like me. You would get it because you’re funny, but she’s just old and not funny. I get driver’s permit soon. I’m a good driver. I’ve driven across town before on my own. I did really good, I just have problems with my turns. I’m more safer than my sister. It takes her forever to pull out of the driveway.

Now the girls have returned with all of their Katy Perry glory. I make them clean my desktops while they argue over which is better; Subway or Quiznos…

Exaggerate: (v)- to magnify beyond the limits of truth

Today in class, we read some Mark Twain and talked about exaggeration. We talked about exapmples of exaggeration from the story, then for fun, I asked them to write a paragraph using exaggeration to describe their experience with this week’s snow storm.

To inspire their young minds, I showed them a Facebook post from my friend Brian:

Brian McMurray
Survival Log: Day 2 - Things are beginning to degrade. The snow has piled up past the garage doors making travel difficult. I have removed the tires from the car and shredded them to fashion a series of digging tools. Was also able to duct tape a fork to a pool cue and create a makeshift harpoon, which I immediately used to harpoon the neighbor’s cat. Poor guy never saw it coming but at least now we're eating.

These were some of the paragraphs my gems came up with... clearly we still have some work to do...

"I was so bored during the snow storm, I thought I was dead."

"On our snow day it was so bad. The snow drift piled up to the sky. The wind was so cold that when old ladies go outside, they swear up and down they see polar bears."


"There was so much snow I couldn’t see outside. We were out of food so we had to eat snow. I died of the ultimate brain freeze."

"On Tuesday, Des Moines Schools got out of school early because there was snow up to our eyes. We had a hard time getting home. There were 1,000 car accidents in 15 minutes. It was OUTRAGEOUS!"


"On Tuesday was a bad day because it was alot of snow. It was really coold outside. We whent home urly. It was exaggeration to be home and I didn’t know what to do."

"The snow was so white and deep it would go past your head. This big bad blizzard happened on Wednesday. Oh jeez it was BIG! The wind would blow you away all the way to Mexico."


"Yesterday during the blizzard we didn’t go anywhere cuz we couldn’t get out the door. My mom suggested we clean the house. We really had no choice cuz my mom was a force to be reckoned with. That was the worst day of my life. School would of bin better."

Holy American Classic Novelist Batman!

Today I introduced the vocabulary words for our next short story, taken from Mark Twain’s memoir, “Roughing It.” I explained how Mark Twain was a famous American author who wrote classic novels including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I reminded students that Mark Twain lived before television and internet, and how in those days, people had to read the newspaper to learn about what was going on in the world.

We proceeded to use our vocabulary words to complete the following sentences about Mark Twain:

As a young man, Mark Twain held a wide array of jobs.

Twain claims to have taken news stories and made them more sensational.

Twain preferred to earn his livelihood as a writer that as a miner.

It was more tolerable to write about hay than to work in a coal mine.

...At this point a student raises his hand...

Student: “So did Mark Twain do all of this before he decided to be Batman?”

Me: “Like I said, Mark Twain was a writer. You’re thinking of Bruce Wayne.”

A child only a mother could love

Today we were having a nice discussion about The Monkey’s Paw and the magic of irony. We discussed how messing with fate was destined to end badly for anyone who dared to use the cursed monkey's paw to make a wish.

In the story, the Old Man and Old Woman make their first wish for money to pay off their mortgage and keep their son out of debt. When the son dies in a tragic accident, the Old Man and Old Woman receive the money they had wished for, but as compensation for their son’s death. The second wish is made, and of course it is to bring their son back to life. During the night as their son makes his way back from the cemetery to their doorstep, the Old Man wizens up and makes the third and final wish for their son’s death.

Student: “That’s mean.”

Me: “If it makes you feel better, they didn’t wish to kill their son, they just wished that he didn’t have to come back all gross.”

Student: “So. It’s their son.”

Me: “You have to remember that he died by falling into machinery. Like you said before, he was all ground up like hamburger; the family couldn’t have an open casket. He has been buried for weeks, he had to climb out of his coffin and through six feet of dirt, and then he had to drag himself for miles back to his parents’ house. Now imagine that all of that had happened to you. Can you imagine what your body would feel like? Can you imagine what you would look like and smell like?

Student: “So. I don’t dress to impress.”

Me: “Well, I guess I can’t argue with that now can I?”

This post is brought to you by The Jersey Shore

How do I describe a day like today? For some reason the phrase “shit storm” comes to mind.

Block 1: Ok. 1st Block wasn’t too bad. I did have to confiscate several sheets of blank address labels. A student had stolen from the Science room (the teacher was gone and had a substitute) and had passed them out to several other kids who were now wearing them as mustaches. At the time I was really annoyed, but if I had known how the rest of the day was going to turn out, I would have let the whole class make fake mustaches and probably fake eyebrows as well.

Block 2: Tired of hearing the kids continuously break out into discussions regarding the crazy girl fight last week, I had to lay down the law. I reminded them that in my classroom, we do not engage in fighting and we do not talk about fighting. I told them if I catch them talking about school fights, they would have to call home and serve a lunch detention. A student responded:

Student: “What’s the big deal? It’s like 10 years later, and people still talk about 9/11.”

Me: “Don’t you dare compare a middle school girl fight to 9/11.” I was too frustrated to say anything else so I made the kids take a test.

Block 3: Although I made it through the Block without incident, as soon as I dismissed the class, all hell broke loose. In less than 5 seconds of the dismissal bell, I found myself diving through a crowd of 100 8th graders. I made it to the center of the chaos to find two girls on the floor. The 1st one was on her back on top of a teacher who had her restrained so she could no longer hit him. The 2nd girl, who is being pulled away by two other teachers, has both hands tightly gripped into the 1st girl’s hair. As the teachers begin to make some headway in separating the two, the 1st girl grabs the 2nd girl’s leg. The two teachers are now dragging all three of them down the hall while I am trying to hold back crowd. That’s when I notice a boy is repeatedly kicking the girl who is restrained. With one hand, I continue to hold back the crowd, while I pin the boy against the lockers with the other. He continues to kick her until I am able to get my body in between them. By then administration has arrived and I am off to write my 1st office referral of the day.

Block 4: (Students’ names have been changed to protect the innocent) After an… interesting day, 4th Block did not disappoint. Towards the end of the Block, I had a student go around and collect assignments. As I stood at the front of the room answering some questions I hear:

Student 1: “Well you’re DTF Jorge.”

At first I didn’t think much of it and the kids didn’t really react so I finished answering the question and gathered the assignments from my helper. As I’m straightening papers I hear:

Student 2: “Well you’re DTF Chavon.”

Student 3: “Well, you’re DTF Dylan.”

At this point I am at my desk with the papers. I set them down, flip open my laptop and google “DTF” (Now you have to understand, this whole process is taking approximately 30 seconds.

Just as a 4th student adds…

Student 4: “Well you’re DTF Miss Lewis”

… the results of my search pop up. "DTF= down to f—k, a phrase made popular by the MTV program, Jersey Shore." I can't believe it.

Student 4 and my eyes meet and I lose it. I slam both of my hands on the desk, casually walk to the center table, take a deep breath and I say “quite sternly”… yes let’s go with “sternly”…

Me: “This is what’s going to happen. I need to take a minute, so I am going to go over to my desk and write down a few names. If your name is on that list, you are going to be spending lunch detention with me today, tomorrow, Friday, and let’s just add all of next week as well. (Are you DTF with that?) Now, for the rest of the period, you are going to sit here in silence because I have some office referrals to write.” For the last six minutes, the only sound in the room came from my keyboard.

The only thing more uncomfortable than those 6 minutes, was listening to the students call their parents during lunch to explain what they had said during my class. One student was in tears before he even picked up the phone. Another one asked me, “How do I explain this in Spanish?” My response was, “Honey, you could probably say it in English and I’m sure there’s at least one word your mother will recognize.” While she talked to her mother, she had to hold the phone half a foot away from her ear because her mother was yelling so loudly. As she went to slam down the phone in mid conversation, I grabbed the phone and said, “You do NOT hang up on your mother!” She looked at me and mumbled, “Um, my mom was so mad that she just hung up on me.”

Holy Haunted House

To cushion the blow of making my students take a test, for the third time this week, I decided to read aloud a chapter from The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. We got to the part where Katniss Everdeen is saying her final farewells, before being sent off to compete in the Hunger Games (a fight to the death on live TV). Her best friend Gale is advising her to get her hands on a bow and arrow because she is a skilled hunter and he knows it might give her a chance.

“Listen,” he says. “Getting a knife should be pretty easy, but you’ve
got to get your hands on a bow. That’s your best chance.”

“They don’t always have bows,” I say, thinking of the year there were
only horrible spiked maces that the tributes had to bludgeon one another
to death with.”

At this point, I asked the class if they know what a mace is and the following discussion transpired:

Student 1: “Isn’t that what you spray in people’s eyes when you get mugged?”

Me: “You’re thinking of mace, like pepper spray, but the sentence uses the word ‘bludgeon’ so in this case, they are referring to a different kind of ‘mace’ or weapon.

I am greeted with blank stares.

Me: “You may have seen a mace in the Capital One commercials with the Vikings. A mace has a wooden or metal handle with a chain on one end. At the end of the chain is a metal ball with spikes on it, and you swing it around really hard and slam down.”

Student 2: “Oh yeah. They used one of those when they killed Jesus in that movie.”

Me: “I know what you’re thinking of, but that was more like a whip. You’re right, though, that weapon was spiked on the end, but a mace is used more for smashing.”

A couple of girls are suddenly really eager to tell share what’s on their minds:

Girl 1: “Oh that was insane. They killed that Jesus guy.” (She starts to move around in her desk, pantomiming to better explain herself.) “They put a spike through this wrist, then that one, so he wouldn’t fall off of his cross.”

Girl 2: “We learned all about it. They put spiky things on him…”

Girl 1: “It was a crown of thorns. Then they whipped him and stabbed him while he was still alive. Then they made him drag his heavy cross through the town and he was all bloody.”

Girl 1: “It was really crazy.”

Girl 2: “Did you know that’s how he died?”

Me: “The story does sounds a little bit familiar. Where did you find out about this?”

Girl 2: “Up the street last Halloween in a haunted house. It was really scary.”

Now that's a mouthful

Today in our staff meeting, it took less than five minutes to be reminded that teachers can be just as immature as students. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from staff meetings:

“Mr. ---- tried to help me with this power point this morning, but he just couldn’t get it up.”

“When kids use this foldable to take their notes, you have to remind them of these simple steps: pinch, fold, then peek inside and find the hidden spot. That’s what we call it, the ‘hidden spot.’ I even made these special signs because some kids really have trouble remembering how to find their hidden spot.”

“Anybody can be nice when you work with them one on one, even a serial killer.” – In regards to picking a student to mentor.

“Oops. It’s looking a little droopy. Try using both hands.”

“This year we need to make sure we personally touch each and every one of our students.”

"My mom hated recess duty, because she had to say things like, 'Stand in line and hold on to your balls.'"