Monday, January 12, 2009

Things Hillbilly Mom Learned Today

1. A boy who shows up in your class after being in alternative school all year may look meek and mild, but can shorten the leg on his own desk three notches while the rest of the class finishes an assignment that was a carry-over from Friday. Note-To-Self: don't shorten the leg of a desk 1st Hour if you are the only person who sits at it, because you can bet that the person who sits there 2nd Hour will tell. I wonder how he'll like sitting in a chair with no desk tomorrow?

2. When Hillbilly Mom is introduced before the 8th Grade basketball game on Parent's Night, a crony of the #1 son who has known Hillbilly Mom since kindergarten will say to his own mother, "I didn't know her first name was 'Happy'. Note-To-Those-Who-Don't-Know-Me-In-Person: that name is OH SO WRONG for Mrs. Hillbilly Mom.

3. When the Health Inspector pops in for a surprise visit during first lunch shift, and stands behind the serving line, the principal discourages students from saying, as they pass through the line, just to be funny, "Oh, you're wearing GLOVES today!"

4. Just because Arch Nemesis holds open the door from the parking lot and steps aside as we arrive at the same time, she does not apparently intend for me to enter. The first clue was when, after I walked through and said, "Thanks," she said, "OK, Princess." Let's not forget that this is the same woman who was talking on her cell phone outside the door one afternoon, saw me pull in, get out of the car, and start for the door, then walked in and let the locked door slam shut, necessitating a trip around the building by the #1 son.

5. When you need to make new seating charts on the first day of the new semester, and teach a lesson, and grade assignments, and run copies for tomorrow...and the counselor's handmaiden brings you a stack of Q2 grades and a stack of S1 grades during the last 10 minutes of 5th hour to check and return 6th hour, the Non-Even Steven Law will bite you on the butt. However, you are so busy that you don't even have time to exclaim, "HEY! WTF bit me on the butt?" During the first five minutes of your 6th hour plan time, while you are checking those grades against the computer gradebook grades, even though they have supposedly been printed from such, but do not all match with what you put in, especially those of a specific program off campus, you will get a phone call from the superintendent's office telling you that there is an urgent issue with your teaching certification, and they need to see you after school. This would normally not be a problem, except that an announcement was made this morning that there will be a mandatory faculty meeting right after school, which throws a monkey wrench into your plans to leave right after the bell to go to the 8th grade basketball game, and now you will also have to squeeze in the excursion to the super's office. Oh, and on your way to turn in those questionable grades and make copies, you will see two students with the door of the NEW COPIER wide open, fishing for paper jams.

6. Worries of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom losing her teaching license were wild exaggerations, as DESE (the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in the state of Missouri, for all you who are not in the loop) merely needs a form to verify that each subject has a 'highly qualified' teacher. That ain't exactly Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, but she'll do in a pinch, and has been doing so for years on end, and has a lifetime teaching certificate in 4 different subjects, so only has to fill out a little form and add up 50 points of qualifications, which should be simple enough, if she could only find her teaching certificate. Thank the Gummi Mary, she can probably look at the one on file in the superintendent's office as a last resort.

4 comments:

Chickadee said...

Ummm so how did meek yet delinquent new boy shorten his desk? And do I even want to know?

And your Arch Nemesis sounds like some of the snooty rich ladies that live up here in the big city. I wonder what she would say if you told her to get over herself.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Chick,
Meek had better not plan on inheriting my good will. He is on my naughty list. I moved him right in front of my desk before I even took roll this morning.

He had to have used some kind of knifey, allen-wrenchy tool to unscrew a bold and slide the leg three notches up into the leg-holding area place of the desk, and then screw it back in again. The Vegetator (of throwing vegetables at lunch fame) was in 3rd hour, and used a keychain wrenchy thingy to fix it for me. Kudos to The Vegetator!

Arch Nemesis would merely laugh and think I was joking, as she never sees herself in the wrong.

Mommy Needs a Xanax said...

Lifetime teaching certificate? As in you don't have to renew it, ever? Sweet. You're not one of those fancy schmancy nationally certified teachers, are you? If so, I'm jealous. Now that Charlie's here, I wonder if I'll ever do it.

My license expires next year. I think I have to have 6 graduate hours or a crap ton of CEU's to renew. I have 3 hours and only a few CEU's. I have no idea if it's enough. I'm probably just going to take another class in the fall to make sure. When I get my MA I won't have to do as much legwork to renew every 5 years. That's my goal-- get my master's before Charlie goes to school and I go back to work.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Miss Ann,
Nope. Never a renewal for Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. That's because she is so old that she used to babysit Jesus.

I'm a lifer. We have several of my ilk at Newmentia. Nary a renewal among us. I will post about this 'urgent' DESE thingy in the future.

I have a Master's, but I am not one of those fancy schmancy national board certified teachers. Nor do I aspire to be one.

I'm just a regular gal who happens to know that the North won the Civil War, Japan DID NOT bomb the Chinese at Pearl Harbor, Alaska is not an island off the western coast of Mexico, and Canada is not a city in Missouri. That alone puts me ahead of the DoNots I used to teach in my At-Risk classes. Which perhaps illuminates why they were classified as At-Risk.