I Love My 8th Grade Homeroom

Last year I had a 7th grade homeroom. When the two 8th grade homeroom teachers retired, I jumped at the chance to take an 8th grade homeroom. I Love 8th graders.

Anyway, last year, the kids were chatting. They were talking about who would play them in a movie of their lives. They asked me who would play me, and I wasted no time in telling them that I surely believed that Samuel L. Jackson would be the most obvious choice. At this, they were delighted.

They have been teasing me about it ever since. Now, as an 8th grade homeroom teacher, I have many of the same kids that I had last year. They still laugh about that. They call me Sameuel sometimes, or Mrs. Jackson. We all laugh.

The school district updated our employee ID cards last week, and never took our old ones away. So, I took my old one and doctored it up a little bit with a picture of Samuel. I just left it on my neck chain and let the kids notice it on their own.

Not long into the morning homeroom period, one of the girls noticed it and made a big deal out of it. The kids all started laughing.

This kid, let's call him James, didn't even seem to notice. But James isn't the swiftest kid in the pack.

James is in my 3rd period English class. About halfway through the lesson, when I was standing in front of his desk, he started looking intently at my ID tag. He asked, "Ms. B., did you get a new ID photo?" I said, "Why yes, I did. What do you think of it?"

He looked at it a moment longer and said, "Well, not to be rude, but you look sort of older in it."

The whole room stopped breathing. Here was this kid, serious as a heart attack, telling me that the only thing noticably different about the photo of Samuel L. Jackson was the fact that I looked older. Granted, Samuel is quite a bit older than me. That said, shouldn't the student have found it more remarkable that I was suddenly a bald African-American man with a beard???

Welcome to my job.

Then, later, during "silent reading" (I use quotes because this is often the loudest period of the day), I noticed a science book lying around on my counter top. I have been trying to crack the whip against errant school materials lately, so I wasted no time asking the owner of the book to step forward. All the kids were quick to point out that they had their own books.

I passed the book to my favorite student of all times and asked him to look inside to find the name of the owner and return the book. He shyly said, "Ms. B., I can't tell you whose book this is." But there was something lurking behind his shy demeanor. "What do you mean, you can't?" I asked. "Is there no name in it."

"Well," he said, "there is, but I can't say."

"What?"

I took the book from the kid, and prepared to announce the owner's name out loud. I was on the verge of shouting it out. But just before I did, I noticed that under the "Issued to" line was the name "Your Ass."

Lovely. Apparently the book was issued to "Your Ass" this year.

I looked at the student. He looked at me. We both just BURST OUT LAUGHING.

come on.

Naturally the kids were all curious as to what we were laughing at. We were right on the verge of going to lunch. I knew the kid would fill them in down in the cafeteria, so I let it go at that.

It was a funny day at work.