Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Kisses

"I've noticed you always make fun of us."

"What are you talking about?"

"You make fun of us all the time. You say something really sarcastic. And the funny thing is that no one even notices. They all just sit there."

The third quarter is almost over, and a student is finally paying attention. And he's partially right. I often say something outlandish just to see if anyone will notice. They usually don't. Except for this kid, sitting in the back of the room by himself, laughing along with every stupid thing out of my mouth. Still, I can't admit to him that he's right.

"Oh, come on," I say. "What have I ever said that might qualify as making fun of students?"

"Well, like today when you said that you wouldn't want to kiss anyone. That was pretty rude."

"What? You want me to say that I want to kiss you guys? That's the best you've got?"

"No, wait, you said something yesterday. I can't remember, but you made fun of us."

"I was probably just trying to motivate you," I say. "Now, if you concentrated on your work as much as on what I do or don't say, maybe you'd pass my class."

"See? You just did it again!"

"Shouldn't you be going to your next class?" He starts towards the door. "Wait," I say, "here's something for you," and I toss him a Hershey's Kiss.

Yes, today I was giving those kinds of kisses to my seventh period class students. Just yesterday the scores came in from the juniors' second practice ACT. The scores are still way too low, but there were sings signs of improvement.

In fact, I have a bulletin board dedicated to their scores. A couple of months ago, I posted the average ACT English score for each of my five classes. They ranged from a high of 18.8 to a low of 12. That was on the first practice test. On the second one, each class went up by at least 1.7 points. My first period class is now averaging 21.6 in English. But I was happiest with seventh period--they went up 3.2 points to 15.7. Like I said, it's still low, but I'm after improvement.

"What these numbers show," I said to each class, "is that improvement is possible. That if you all take it seriously, you can move those numbers up some more. Now, we've got a month left before the real test, so you're really going to have to work hard."

"You should give us some kind of reward, cookies or something," one kid in seventh period said. "A reward for improving the most." There was a chorus of agreement.

"In fact," I said, "I'm so pleased with your scores that I'd like to give each of you a kiss." I walked over to a row of boys. They all shrank back. I pulled out a bag of Hershey's Kisses. They laughed, and I walked around the room dropping a couple of Kisses on each desk.

"No offense," I said, "but I wouldn't really want to kiss any of you."

Kids were busy unwrapping the chocolates. Except for one kid in the back of the room, who took note of that comment.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Enjoy doling out yer kisses now...your chocolate ones, that is. Our legal department has gotten wind of legislation a-comin' that will deem all foods in the classroom illegal (possibly even immoral!)--with all the allergies and stuff.

You may have to actually pucker up soon. Though the results may not be as favorable.

(my word verification below is "fokbub", which made me laugh for some reason, possibly because if you say it aloud, it sounds like an Eastern European is upset with Bob...)

Anonymous said...

May I just tease you gently about saying your class is showing "sings of improvement"?

Glad you're back from break; love this blog...

Word verification: igqckjj
I
get
quality
chocolate
kisses
january (to)
june

teacherman said...

I don't mind not being allowed to hand out chocolates and other treats. I just hope I can accept the free snacks from the kids that like to share with their favorite English teacher.

As for anonymous: Thanks for pointing out my error. I'm usually a fairly clean writer, but recently I've been making all sorts of stupid mistakes. In fact, after you pointed out "sings" of improvement, I went through the post and found another mistake, this time with a preposition. Oh well. This is why I now offer this challenge to my readers: Find an error in a post and I will give you a kiss. What kind of kiss depends ...