teachaaaaaa

i've been wearing my teacher nicki hat for two days now and i'm already relishing in the joy/hilarity/excellentness of teaching again. i'm teaching the 11th and 12th graders this semester (i had 9th and 10th graders last semester, but of course you remembered that, attentive reader), so since the kids have moved up a grade since we last saw them--this was, after all, summer vacation we were just on--i still have my former 10th graders, now as 11th graders. when i walked into a couple of my favorite classes, we all squealed in excitement to see each other again. "nickiiiii!!!" some of them shouted.

i don't think everyone's excited to see teacher nicki again, though. i also heard a couple of the "oh, nicki..." utterances, too. lol. too bad, so sad.

ANYWAY, of course i have some hilarious stories for you.

so in the class of smart 12th graders, instead of the typical "what did you do over summer?" activity, i decided i'd make a legit effort to learn these kids' names. i asked them to write their name and one word that described them on the board, and i took a picture of the student with the self-made label. welllll, since they're the ambitious nerdy types, they weren't satisfied with the standard quiet/funny/friendly/lazy...they got out their dictionaries and got creative.

one boy wrote "sexy" for his word, which sent the class into riotous laughter. another girl came up and wrote "chocolate." "what does it mean to be chocolate?" i asked. "my skin," she said, and pointed to her incredibly-not-chocolate skin. the class laughed. "excuse me," i said, hands on my hips, "but you had teacher tash [who is actually black] last quarter. you know what chocolate skin is."

i was paying attention to another kid when i hear a girl in the front row spelling a word for her friend. "H-I-T-L-E-R."

"ARE YOU SPELLING HITLER?!" she and her friends giggle and say yeah, is it right?

"you mean hitler, like SIT DOWNNNNNN!!!!!" i shout at the class, heiling and demanding everyone to put their asses in their seats. this girl at the front, the one who's "like hitler," just starts cracking up and hunches her shoulders in that geeky, sort of shy way. totally un-hitler-like. "well, if you're gonna write hitler, you have to heil."