Eyebrow Emergency: What They Don't Teach You in School

The following post is probably the single-most blog-worthy moment to happen to me since this whole self-indulgent charade began. Let me tell you. It is good. Hold on to your eyebrows.

What Had Happened Was.....

I am not one of those teachers who wakes up at 5:00 AM to walk the dog, do the crossword, and perform twelve sun salutations before making my way to school. I am much more akin to one of my high school Lit survey teachers who occasionally found herself blow drying her hair behind the desk as class began. It's just my way.

Because of this, I recently found myself loaded down with fresh copies and tearing around the corner of the 7th grade hall precisely ten minutes before the morning's first bell. There I ran into a boy who will be referred to Spock. The nickname will click later. 

A little back story....

Spock is the only student that I've ever run into at a roller derby bout. He's less Justin Bieber. More Marilyn Manson. He is less Southern Baptist. More Wiccan. He's more likely to be caught in knee-high, lace-up Converse than Wallabees. He is the only student who's ever asked me, "Ms. P, do you think I could get away with elbow-length fishnet gloves here?" He's less Twilight.  And more Tim Burton. In a word, he's unexpected - as was his coming request.

"Oh, Ms. P, I am SOOOO glad to see you!" he wailed, with an exhale befitting a marathoner crossing the finish line.

As he normally errs on the dramatic side, I continued my hustle to the classroom barely making eye contact. "Okay, what's up? What do you need, Spock?"

"Okay, seriously, this is an emergency. Do you have any eyeliner?"

Aware of his musical leanings and fashion experiments, a certain image flashed through my mind before I continued...

"Now, Spock, you know I'm here for you, but I'm not your cool aunt! I can't give you eyeliner. Talk to your parents about it."

Exasperated, he responded, "Oh, Ms. P, it is SO not like that. This is an emergency." Suddenly, he grabbed my arm with one hand and, with the other, pointed to his eyebrow - or should I say, where his eyebrow had once been. 

                                        

What remained was a sort of half-eyebrow. The remainder ran from the top of his nose to where the arch had once began. The effect left him looking permanently befuddled. It was social suicide. 

Like Lauren Conrad faced with a life-or-death fashion emergency, I cringed. 

I dropped my purse and set my copies down, dragging him into my classroom. "What DID you DO? Did you wax it? Where did you get wax? What was your goal? Were you BORED?!" I fired a barrage of endless questions at him.

He cut through my curiosity with basic brutal truth, "Ms. P, I really can't go into it. No, not wax. I shaved it. But the point is this...I'm 13. I'm in middle school. I cannot, will not go to class with half an eyebrow, or I will never be anyone but the boy with one and a half eyebrows."

He had me there. 

"You're right. But look, Spock. I don't have eyeliner on me. However, I do have something else." I pulled him to the back of my classroom where I have an organizer full of school supplies. I rummaged around and pulled out two Magic Markers. Black and Brown. "Take your pick, buddy."

When they said "preferred by teachers," I'm pretty sure they didn't have this in mind.

Ever the goth, he chose black. 

"Hold still," I demanded, summoning all the eyebrow-sculpting advice I had ever read in beauty magazines. I uncapped the marker, warned him against laughing, and went to town.

In that moment, I thought: No education college in the land could ever prepare its graduates for such a time as this. They really don't teach you everything in The Art and Science of Teaching.

And let me tell you, as I stepped back to admire my handiwork, I realized that I had drawn him an eyebrow that would make a drag queen proud.

With that and a warning to not scratch, itch, or even think about sweating, I sent him off to homeroom. At lunch when he saw me, he pointed excitedly to my masterpiece and asked, "Is it still there?!"

The next morning, he walked proudly into school with a fresh brow, drawn with eyeliner. I grinned and asked, "Oh! Did your mom give in? Or did you walk to the drugstore to buy it yourself?"

He shrugged, "When I came home yesterday looking like I did, she offered to fix it for me until it grows back in."

Apparently Mama Spock didn't appreciate my fine handiwork. 

The Retrospect Project, 2: Hunter Harris's Story

For a little background on The Retrospect Project, read this.

To read the introduction to today's author and his story, go here.

Without further ado...Hunter Harris's hilarious retrospective moment, which I'd like to call...

"The Boy with the Green Hair"

"I’ll be honest—I was not the coolest kid in middle school. In seventh grade, I was 6’4”, and I weighed barely 170 pounds. Needless to say, I was already fairly noticeable. Add large-frame glasses to that equation, and you have a unique combination of nerd. As a gangly, awkward being, I desperately needed an opportunity to put forward the “correct” image that my classmates (namely the girls) could appreciate.

See that kiddo with the goofy grin? Yeah, that would be him.

I had two musical inspirations for my new look. First, boy bands were still popular, though they were starting to decline. Now, I did not personally care for them, but girls loved them. I noted that they especially appreciated the blonde band members like Justin Timberlake, Nick Carter, and Lance Bass (in hindsight, how ironic). 

Backpacks, lunchboxes, and t-shirts with various quartets dominated the hallways. The boys knew that we had to at least pretend to appreciate the boy band genre if we were going to stand as sensitive, caring guys. 

Secondly, Eminem had just released The Marshall Mathers LP. If Eminem is popular now, he was almost god-like in the early 2000s. You had 0 street cred unless you could rap “The Way I Am” or “The Real Slim Shady.” Considering I went to a middle school that had an African American population that equaled upwards of eighty percent, Eminem gave the “white boys” a chance to be cool. I reveled in the opportunity. I had white t-shirts and black, baggy jeans, but I just couldn’t yet pay proper homage. 

As a brunette, I knew that Mother Nature had not blessed me with golden locks at that age, so, like millions of people each year, I planned to bleach my hair. Unfortunately, I had a mother with enough sense to forbid me to do something so ridiculous (I eventually wore her down next year, but that’s an entirely different, ridiculous story). Without the courage to disobey her or the finances to purchase blonde hair dye, I was left with very little opportunity to improve my lot in life. “Fortunately” for me, I was a fairly resourceful kid. I remembered that my brother and I had been given sidewalk chalk the previous Christmas.

Per my logic, yellow sidewalk chalk was just a slight downgrade from peroxide. Without testing how the chalk looked in my hair, I scraped the chalk all over my scalp before strutting to the school bus. Had my bus driver not been so apathetic that he actually looked at the students that rode his bus, my expressionist journey might have ended there. Also, my family lived in a rural area, so I was the oldest student to ride the bus, thus making me automatically cool to the elementary kids. With both of these factors in my favor, I felt like a king by the time we pulled onto campus. 

To make the story a bit more concise, I’ll just say that my hair was a huge hit—just not in the way I expected. When my peers saw my hair during our pre-class congregation, they did not become instantly jealous or attracted, as I hoped. No, they laughed. Uncontrollably. Our assistant principal (thank God for small mercies), hearing the cackling of my friends, found me, and quickly escorted me to the boys’ bathroom. I knew I only had one option to save myself from detention—head dunking. Left alone to my shameful enterprise, I noticed my hair for the first time in the mirror above one of the sinks. Instead of the crisp, golden base I expected, my hair was closer to a lime-green hue. 

Instead of Eminem or Mr. Timberlake, I looked more akin to Joey Fatone. Joey was not cool; Joey was never cool. If the shame wasn’t enough, I had to go to the rest of my classes with the helmet that grows from my wet, unbrushed hair. 

I learned that day that I was better off just accepting my own nerd-dom, rather than trying to cultivate a non-organic persona. Though it was a long road, I learned to appreciate my potential, rather than prop up my deficiencies. And, years later, I found friends, even potential dates, that could appreciate the nerd in me."

I really don't think I could have topped that story. And what a fantastic "moral." Do you have a story to share? If so, email it to Ms. P at bestinclassblog@gmail.com.

Write from Your Full-Sized Aortic Pump

"Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word."

Stephen King

Remember when we talked about thesauri? Well, I promised you the rest of the story, so here we go.

In the past when I've introduced my students to the thesaurus, I always follow it up by showing this clip from Friends. (Minus those first few seconds, of course.) 

If you're so much in love with my blog that you hate to stray to Youtube (sarcasm), let me give you a quick synopsis. Joey is writing a letter of recommendation to an adoption agency for Monica and Chandler. Worried that he won't be taken seriously because of his...ahem...lack of intellect, Ross introduces him to a thesaurus. 

When it comes to words, my students think like Joey. Bigger is better. Because everyone wants to sound smart, right? Unfortunately when you let a 7th grader loose with a wealth of strange, unwieldy synonyms, their writing can become a bit of a communication nightmare. 

For some reason, I never got around to the "Bless His Heart, but Don't be a Joey" lesson this year. However, a few recent student sentences have convinced me that it's time to bring it back. 

This is where you come in. Can you figure out what their pre-thesaurus sentences must have been?

REAL student writing:

1) "We convened subordinate to the towering bark fortress."

2) "This holiday, we indulged in some beautification novelty trimming."

3) "I unfurled my protection system from the precipitation."

4) And one of my personal favorites, from the reading fair today:

"These three children used to be so blithe, it was hard to explicate."

When I happen across one of these sentences in student writing, I gently pull them aside and quote Chandler's advice to Joey:

 "You don't need a thesaurus. Just write from here (motions towards heart) - your full-sized, aortic pump."

Armed with a thesaurus,

Ms. P

The Retrospect Project 1: Carrie M.

If you missed the introduction post for the The Retrospect Project* feature, please catch up here.

I am very pleased to have Mrs. Carrie for our first guest writer on the Retrospect Project. Allow me to introduce her, will you? 

This is Carrie toasting to the fact that she's no longer in middle school.

Carrie is a busy blogger. You can read more from her at The Life and Strife of a Military Wife and From the Mat Up, her yoga blog.

But more on the middle-school Carrie:

Me: Carrie, what CD or tape would we most likely find in your radio in middle school?

C: Regretfully, I must say 98 Degrees. I liked their muscles.

Me: Tell us a fashion trend you participated in wholeheartedly.

C: Sweater vests were cool for about a month.

Me: What was your go-to yearbook sign off?

C: Most likely a heart with my name underneath. The "i" dotted with a heart as well.

Me: Sum up your middle school experience in ONE word.

C: Distressing.

Now listen to her story. 'Cause she's a yogi.

See?

"Out of the 19 years of school, seventh grade had to be the worst year of my educational experience (not to mention, life). I was short, wore glasses, and had an older brother just one year ahead of me. I cannot tell you how many times I was called 'J.P.’s little sister' or told that I looked just like him (Thanks, you just told me I look like a 13 year old boy.) But even that wasn’t as bad as the embarrassment a 12 year old can feel when she falls flat on her face.

Gym class at CMS was dreaded, especially for me. I hated everything about it but one thing: Scooter Day. That’s right, one whole day devoted to riding these four-wheeled pieces of plastic that were only a few inches from the ground. Everyone loved scooter day, and everyone wanted to be first to gym class to get the best scooter. My friends and I had a pact: Whoever got to class first would get the rest equally as nice scooters. 

Gym class was located across campus, behind the high school. It was already intimidating enough walking through all the “big” kids, but my friends had nominated me that day to be the scooter saver. I was honored that they would choose me, but wary because there was a huge crowd of HIGH SCHOOLERS that I would have to push through. However, I was a savvy seventh grader, so I decided to run on the ground beside the sidewalk and cross onto the sidewalk at the last minute to narrowly dodge anyone over the age of 14. It was brilliant! I couldn’t believe how possible I had made an impossible task.

After formulating my plan and noticing fellow classmates on their way to gym, I broke into a sprint. I ran with all my heart, and I actually think Vangelis’s “Chariots of Fire” was playing in the background. I visualized the best scooter and I knew it would be mine that day. Then, it was time for the crossover. I leaped with great faith, but instead of sticking my landing, my legs became tangled and I fell like a sack of potatoes. IN FRONT OF ALL THE HIGH SCHOOLERS! I was mortified and bleeding. 

I did the only thing I knew to do… I got back up and started running. But instead of getting my coveted scooter, I had to get my elbow and knee bandaged. No scooter that day, and my friends didn’t even care to check on me. It took weeks worth of Neosporin to get my wounds to heal and a hell of a lot more time to forget the incident. I still have the scars from that day, but as for those other hussies I called friends, they’re history."

We've got your back NOW, Carrie. (those trollops)

Watching my step,
Ms. P


*Originally called Blast from the Past

Leftovers, Part 1

Remember when I guaranteed more student similes here? Some of those promised treasures are sprinkled throughout this entry and the next in italics.

Until now, my entries have focused mainly on student blunders - misspellings, grammatical errors, and whatnot. And if I didn’t believe in the old, “You reap what you sow,” principle before, I certainly do now. Because, folks, yesterday I blundered big time.  Perhaps it was karma. Perhaps it’s because the end of the semester has me as distracted as a dog catching a scent in the wind. Who knows? Yet in the interest of full disclosure and in providing you with a little entertainment, I’ll share my humdinger. This particular goof had an immediate consequence, just like any classroom management plan worth it’s salt.

A bit of backstory: Until about 2 months ago, I was the proud owner of a GoPhone. Nothing fancy for this public servant. Having a $25 phone bill and only being able to check Facebook the old-fashioned way made me feel like I was part some elite, ascetic club - choosing to deny myself the pleasures of multiple apps and endless portable procrastination. Then, I met the Samsung Epic. Living up to it’s name, it has Swype texting, a touchscreen, a slide-out keyboard, and all the apps a girl could desire. I bought in and, in turn, joined the more populated, hedonistic club of smartphone users. From day one, I was glued to my Epic like a newborn baby to its mom. 

Which is why, on Friday, it accompanied me to the cafeteria for lunch. Fast forward half an hour. I sat in my red, teacher’s chair traipsing through the midterm review, when it suddenly occurred to me that I was missing my Epic. I flashed back to carelessly tossing my Kroger bag of leftovers into one of the 3 industrial-sized trashcans in the cafeteria.  

Horrified, I recalled that I had carried the Epic to lunch in that very same bag and had never removed it. My shoulders dropped like the rain after a long drought, defeated. 

I instructed my students to attempt the next 5 questions on the study guide and shot across the hall to the neighboring social studies’ teacher’s room. He and the other coaches have a deal with the cafeteria ladies that they will take the trash to the dumpsters after each lunch period if they are provided with all the food growing boys could ever need. 

Me: “Coach P! I think I threw my phone away!

Chuckles flew out of him like milk out of a cow.

Me: It’s NOT funny! It’s new, and I’m on a teacher’s salary, and OF ALL THE MONTHS, I just bought all these Christmas presents!

Clearly realizing the seriousness of the situation, his laughter slowed, and he wiped the tears of joy from his eyes.

Coach P: Watch my class.

Then, he left the room and pushed through the exit door at the end of our hall, headed for the dumpster. Five minutes later, he returned without my phone and coated in unidentifiable substances from the elbows down. I was as disappointed as a farmer whose cows had been struck by lightning. That’s when we put together the following timetable. 

11:58 - Lunch ended and students went out to courtyard with teachers on duty.

12:00 - He took the trash out to the dumpster.

12:05 - I threw my bag away in the fresh bags in the cafeteria trashcans.

12:06 - I escorted my kids back to class.

12:15 - I realized my fatal error and leapt into action.

12:18 - While Coach P was searching through the 7th grade’s leftovers, the 8th grade coach threw the 8th grade’s trash (including MY bag) in the dumpster.

Therefore, MY phone was not in the bags Coach P searched through, but was in one of the three bags Coach S, the 8th grade coach, had just deposited. Perfect! (I like to think that we weren’t wasting class time, merely modeling critical thinking skills for our students.)

Realizing that I would be pushing it to beg Coach P to return to the dumpster, I informed him that I would ask another teacher to watch my class and go search myself. Armed with nothing more than fierce determination and an oversized t-shirt to wear over my work clothes, I throttled myself towards the cafeteria. At that point, I truly wished that I would have had the foresight to put “Inflatable Hazmat Suit” on last year’s Christmas list for times such as this. Hindsight is truly 20/20, dear readers.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Jealous of that guy in the green gloves,

Ms. P