Good Thursday

An entire homeroom class (about 30 students) were sent home today because the majority of them had high temperatures. H1N1? Doubt it. Then again I don't really want to get sick at all. Of course all of this transpired after I taught half their class.

When they arrived in my class after lunch, 7 students from their class had already been sent home. 1 claimed she was sick and feverish. But she was fairly spry. Still she was gulping down the water. And worst of all her friend next to her was drinking out of her water bottle.

On the devil's advocate side of things....while I was teaching the class slang, they did ask me what the english was for 'leaving class without permission.' 'Ditching class' I told them. Teenagers are very sneaky. You know the old faking sick tricks. Like the put your hands in your armpits to make them clammy via Ferris Bueller. Or the stick your head next to the heater to try to raise your temperature. The girls like to make themselves look a little paler.

But they lucked out anyway and everyone got sent home for the remainder of the week. A 4 day weekend for them! But if any of them are sick their quarantine will continue all next week. Unfortunately, they will have to come to school and be secluded from the other students ALL DAY EVERY DAY for a week. No English class for them. Hopefully, I'll still be teaching the other classes next week and not bed ridden.

That was the bad news for the day. The rest of the day went very smoothly. I asked the other teacher's for advice. My two main co-teachers both gave me advice. And of those two the head English teacher broke out all these laminated lesson plans. She was holding out on me! I gave her a sarcastic comment after she said she forgot. She's the only one who can really appreciate sarcasm. And she can really dish it out, too. I've called it on her a couple times already. Anyway, my lesson plans went smoothly as well.

Even with the smaller class size for the 1st graders I was able to accomplish a lot during their class. I taught them Louis Horn style slang. Like 'So Long!' and 'Ohhh, what a nightmare!' I got all my kids to say 'So Long' as they left the classroom. I, also, mixed in few other slang phrases. I am really trying to get them to stop with the idioms. I really hate idioms. For example, when I ask 'how are you?' they respond 'I AM FINE THANKS. HOW ARE YOU?' That just kills me. It says, 'Hey! Look! I can't speak a lick of English!' I don't want that to be the case. So, I am trying to mix it up and make it fun. So, I am on my Louis style slang stint, right now. Maybe I'll teach them 'OH, THAT IS SO FLUKEY!' when they can grasp it fully.

But slang is really fun to teach. My favorite today being, 'Let's blow this popsicle stand!'

As my main co-teacher, Ms Yoo, left today she looked back...paused....and blurted out, 'I'm blowing this popsicle stand!' I almost died.


I'm outta here!



Notes:

I wrote this while listening to AUTO TUNE THE NEWS, Shawtay! It's addicting as crack. I keep hitting it. I strongly suggest you do the same.