Adventures in Sixth Grade Choir

Sometimes, the little varmints crack me up.

Flattery

I am normally the jeans-and-sweater kind of teacher. I wear my trusty Old Navy jeans and my butt-kicking boots or Nikes most often, but sometimes I like to dress up. Today I wore a new skirt--a kind of floaty, khaki-colored number. Very cute. I paired it with a fitted black sweater with 3/4 sleeves and black ballet flats from Paris. Add my little pearl earrings and a black bead bracelet, and Miss C was lookin' good.

The kids fell into my classroom as normal today, and got to work on their starters. Larry (as ever, not a real name), one of my brighter and easier-to-like students, looked at me and said, "You look good today, Miss Cooper."

To which I replied, without pause, "Thanks...but I always look good."

Larry started laughing and said, "Well, you're just...all about you." I just laughed and continued taking attendance.

This Kid is Going Places

I've been struggling to show my kids just how great choir can be, so I pulled out the heavy artillery today: a video of the 1995-1996 Folsom High School Jazz Choir. There were 8 of us, and it's not hard to see a 17-year-old Miss Cooper on the video, singing her heart out. I explained (okay, bragged) to the class that this was a State Championship group, and a group that worked, worked, worked to sound that good.

I let the class watch a few songs, then turned it off and said, "Any questions?" Hands went up all over the room. I called on Andy first (he's one of my sweetest kids) and he said, "You look the same now as you did then!" I smiled and said, "Yeah...except I was skinnier then." From across the room I heard a voice say, in complete puzzlement, "You're still skinny!"

Wish I knew who said that, so I could know who to give 500 extra points to.

TweedleGrump and TweedleGrumpier

Tom and Dallas are two boys with a lot of anger management issues. They're also two boys who have decided, for whatever reason, that behaving in class is pointless and not worth their time. Yesterday Tom was sent out for saying--loudly--"I won't be quiet! I won't shut up!" every time I asked the class to settle down. Dallas (who is actually named after another Texas city) was sent out for refusing to sit down, and for pulling a little girl's hair.

Mrs. Principal knows these kids have been problems in my class and school-wide. Today she had an alternate activity planned for them. They've been wanting an alternative to choir and they got it--lunch clean-up at the high school.

I ran into Mrs. Principal and her two disgruntled charges after choir today. I gave a chipper smile and asked, "How did it go?" Mrs. Principal smiled and said, "It went well, except they both have unexcused tardies for this class period because they were taking their time."

You could see the steam coming out of Tom's ears. "Well, that guy splattered the milk carton all over the floor and we had to clean it up!!!"

I wonder if choir is looking like a better alternative already...if not, they have more clean-up duty tomorrow and Friday.

I laughed the whole way home.