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.”

Mad Libs Gone Awry

I have recently come to the realization that a Mad Lib is more powerful than a Klodike Bar when it comes to 8th graders. My students will do anything if it means they get to do a Mad Lib at the end of class… and of course I milk this for all it’s worth. Transitions between activities have never been more smooth, silent reading time has never been more silent, answers written in complete sentences have never been so… well we’re still working on this, but my little gems really seem to kick it into gear if they see the Mad Lib tablet resting on my desk.

After a successful class period, I slap the word list on the projector, and the creativity starts flowing.

Me: Give me a noun, and make it a good one.

Students: a boot, a booger, a potato, a donkey, jumping… (clearly we still have some work to do when it comes to parts of speech).

Then I hear it; the most creative answer of all, an adjective noun combination, two words for the price of one.

Student: A blue waffle.

Me: Ooh. I like that. Look how we can add an adjective in front of our noun to make it be more creative.

As I start writing, the snickering begins and I to hear things like, “Oh my God, who said blue waffle?” and “I can’t believe she’s really putting that.” Then there is a horrified gasp from a group in the back, while a student up front asks her neighbors, “What’s a blue waffle.”

At this point, I know something is not right. My pen stops and I start to cross out my words.

Me: You know what. I can tell by your reactions, that this is not appropriate. I think we need to stick to something that is more suitable for class. How about a “park bench”?

Student: That’s probably a good idea. A blue waffle is disgusting.
This of course causes a barrage of, “What’s a blue waffle?” “I don’t get it.” “Miss Lewis, can you whisper to me what it is?”

All I can say is, “I don’t know what it is, but you can sure bet I will Google it when you leave and make a few phone calls to parents.”

Student: Just don’t hit Google images.

During my next class, I find a minute to sit in the corner, with my computer turned against the wall, crossing my fingers that nobody walks in or comes over to my desk and I Google “blue waffle.” I knew it was a bad sign, when most results were blocked from my school computer. I was able to see a partial link that read: Blue Waffle [bloo-wof-uh l] : A battered or infected lady cake of blue or green colouring, often brought about by extreme rammage to the female taco with …

Fantastic.