Two stories

1) I at times, have an agenda on the board for what we are going to do for the day. (I'm supposed to have it on the board everyday, but I mess this one up). So I had written, -Pass back to imply I was going to pass back work to the students. If I don't write it down, I forget to do it.

So I had erased part of the board and had erased a part of the P on -pass back. It left ass back on my board. The class tried to tell me in a very nice way that there was a bad word on the board. I thought they were showing me the projector was left on, so I turned the projector off and went on teaching. Later, one young man said, "Ms. Dyer, you erased some of the agenda." I told him No Problem, I had only erased what we had already done. He told me that there was a bad word on the board. I looked and said, "Thanks Rog. You handled that really well." The class didn't giggle or go out of control. Thank you to Rog. He is a wise kind young man whose feet don't yet touch the floor.

Story 2)
Ralph is a student in my 7th grade class. He is quite an enigma. He's pretty good in math, but is just weird. He's a class clown and he sometimes falls asleep in class. So yesterday, he fell asleep. I somehow got enough attention of the other student by panomiming. I indicated (ALL WITHOUT WORDS) that on my count of three, via my fingers, we would all say, "Ralph!" The class all understood what I wanted. I raised my fingers, one, two,... Three. And the class, having rehearsed unison answering in every class, shouts clearly and quickly, "RALPH!"
The look of fear and shock on Ralph's round face was priceless. He pounded his fists on his desk and did one of those silent screams. It was so funny. Funny .... I then lost the class.

It took 5 minutes to bring them back. I tried to write notes on the board, but that didn't work. I then had to have the class journal about what had happened. Many wrote the goings on in the back of their planner that has a place for "most memorable moments." I had another teacher in the room. He said that it was the best moment of his teaching career to be there. I'm sure I can't write the story as funny as it was, but the kids were talking about it still today.

another day in the life...