Mrs. Ram's Jams

Tag: middle school teacher

• Mrs. Ram’s Holiday Gift Guide for Teachers

  Posted at 10:41 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on December 12, 2020

  

  Tired of giving gift cards, coffee mugs, and home-baked goodies to your children’s teachers every year for Christmas? 

  Have you put off shopping for teacher gifts because you lack good ideas?

  Look no further! I’ve got some great teacher gift ideas for you.

  Plants. I squealed in delight when the school librarian dropped off this perfect little succulent in my room this week.

  

  Once, I received a begonia hanging basket and about died on the spot. If your child showed up with a tiny poinsettia for me, I would explode with Christmas joy. Seriously, consider giving plants this Christmas. They’re inexpensive and unexpected. 

  A lunch-sized Crock-Pot. If you’re willing to spend a little more on a Christmas gift, this is perfect for teachers. I purchased one for myself, and it has been life-changing. Some schools don’t allow teachers to have their own microwaves in their rooms, and right now using a communal microwave grosses me out. With COVID, lots of teachers have to monitor students during lunch and can barely find the time to eat, let alone heat up their lunch. I plug in my baby Crock-Pot at the end of third block, and my chicken and veggie soup or pot roast is the perfect temperature by the end of fourth block. Every teacher I know who has one can’t live without theirs. 

  

  Cool handmade shit you or your friends make.  ‘Tis the season to promote yourself! Last year, I received a gorgeous pottery ornament and bowl made by a student’s mother. I’ve gotten the most delicious salsa that a student’s mother sells, and once I tasted it, I turned around and bought some to give to my friends for Christmas. And while I’m not crafty, I have friends who are. One of my besties from high school makes the MOST gorgeous and fantastic artisan soaps, so guess what Little Thing’s teachers are getting this year?

  

  (Here’s a link to her website:  Persifer Soap Company.) (Image credit.)

  I’m sure you have friends who make earrings, bath bombs, hot chocolate bombs, etc. Support your friends, and give the cool shit they make to your kids’ teachers. 

  Cool handmade shit your kids make. I have received gifts that have made me cry and are framed and precious and I will cherish them forever and ever. (Rambly incoherent sentence intended because I’m incoherent just thinking about them.) I had a student two years ago paint me this. I was a mess for the rest of the day.

  

  I had a student draw this for me one year. (Context:  Mrs. Ram, that’s me, loves Goose, my husband’s nickname, with Little Thing watching the two of us. I die now, okay?)

  

  Your kids are talented. I love to get their works of art.

  Gifts that relate to the teacher’s classroom theme. More than likely, your kids’ teachers’ classrooms are decorated with a theme. Mine’s decorated in llamas, so anything llama related is welcome! Llama sticky notes? Yes, please! Llama pencils? Sure! Llama stuffed animals, hand towels, or journals? Absolutely! Ask your kids how their teachers’ classrooms are decorated and go from there. 

  

  Gift cards to local businesses. Okay, I know I started this post by saying Tired of giving gift cards…but but but. Think outside the box with this one. Don’t just go with gift cards for Amazon, Walmart, Target, or Starbucks. Think local, especially with small businesses being hit hard this year. Give the gift of a manicure or pedicure! Give the gift of your favorite Mexican restaurant! Give the gift of your favorite florist or boutique!

  

  But in all honesty, teachers enjoy all the gifts they receive. They will love every coffee mug and Starbucks gift card they receive. 

  It’s just nice to be recognized and appreciated, especially during such a tumultuous school year. 
  Posted in education, teaching, Uncategorized | 3 Comments | Tagged english teacher, gifts for teachers, middle school teacher, teacher gifts, teaching

• A Teacher Tale: How I Tortured My Students for My Own Entertainment This Week

  Posted at 10:51 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on October 24, 2020

  

  It’s no secret that my class’s content is mind-numbing. I sympathize with my students who have fallen asleep, cheeks pressed to their sanitized desks and drool unspooling from the corners of their mouths, lulled into slumber because The Odyssey is boring. Who can blame them? It’s terribly long, was written eons ago, and is a poem. I struggle to contain my excitement, too.

  (You have no idea how much middle schoolers loathe poetry. But I adore yelling:  Guess what? We’re going to read a poem today!!!! And delight in the resounding chorus of teenage groans of displeasure following my pronouncement.) 

  Anyway, to further torture students, I try to make it as awkward as possible for my own entertainment.

  Because messing with the kids is the best part of my job. 

  Here’s how I tortured my students this week:

  1. I made them do their work in Kami. If you’re unfamiliar with Kami, it’s a PDF annotation program. The students despise it because despite an autosave feature, it only saves frequently not constantly. Apparently they’ve never known the despair of writing an essay in Microsoft Word that you’ve stayed up all night to complete that’s due to a professor in a couple of hours and losing your work because you accidentally closed the document without hitting “save now.” The. Horror. Google Docs has spoiled them. Experiencing the collective agony of pre-Google technology will make them better human beings.
  2. I made them talk to their laptops. Well, I specifically asked them to converse with Kami and ply her with compliments so she’d be more willing to save their work. An ALARMING number of students performed the exact opposite of my request and told Kami horrible, awful things, calling her names. One student even expressed to Kami a disquieting desire to light her on fire. Middle schoolers are terrible at being kind, but they loved talking to inanimate objects–even though they were being total Regina Georges while doing so. Weirdos. 

  

  (gif credit)

  3. I made them listen to the cyclops scene from The Odyssey straight through, it’s thirty minutes long, without stopping–on a Friday. Sir Ian McKellen narrates the audiobook for them, but Gandalf fails to impress them. I did soften the blow by playing some pop culture clips of the Lotus Eaters beforehand. At least I didn’t test them?

  

  (gif credit)

  4. I talked to myself obnoxiously to fill awkward silences. My second block refuses to warm up to me, laugh at my terrible puns and dad jokes, and to be anything but serious. I will loosen them up, and if it means I’m narrating my inner monologue audibly for the rest of the year, then so be it. 
  5. I called myself beautiful. Actually, I referred to myself as a “lustrous goddess,” like in The Odyssey, and the boys laughed in horror at a grown woman’s audacity at calling herself pretty. If you want your ego shattered, I suggest employing this strategy. Another good strategy is to ask them to guess your age. ONLY embark on either of these methods if you can brush off the comments and have a sense of humor about their reactions. (Also. What. The. Hell? What kind of society have we created that it’s not socially acceptable to call yourself beautiful and that it makes people and children uncomfortable when you do?)

  

  (gif credit)

  What did you do, teacher friends, to add a little humor to your classrooms this week? 

  Posted in education, teaching | 2 Comments | Tagged english teacher, middle school, middle school teacher, teaching, teaching middle school

• A Teacher Tale: Questions About the 2020-2021 School Year

  Posted at 1:54 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on April 24, 2020

  
  

  Photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels.com

  Am I going to have to wear a mask to teach?

  If I do have to wear a mask . . .

  How are the kids going to see my facial expressions? That’s like, the best part of me as a teacher!

  Does this mean I have to up my eyeshadow game and learn how to properly apply winged eyeliner for once and for all to make up for the lack of, you know, a mouth? I’ve got to give the kids something interesting to look at. Looks like I’ll be watching a million Jaclyn Hill YouTube tutorials before August.

  Can I stop wearing lipstick to work? Who am I kidding. I rarely wore lipstick at work anyway . . .

  What happens when I sneeze? I’m obviously going to have to take off my mask to blow my nose and that’s going to break the law . . . Do I just count that mask as my Kleenex and whip it off and don a fresh one?

  Do I have to match my mask to my outfit? Or can you get away with clashing? Like is it crime against fashion to wear my orange and blue school polo shirt with a pink-ribbon-breast-cancer-awareness-patterned-ten -year-old-piece-of -scrap-fabric-diy mask that my MIL sewed for me? Maybe I need to find a subreddit about the art of mixing prints?

  Am I going to have to stand six feet apart from everybody at all times at school?

  How am I going to stand in the hallway in the mornings and stand six feet apart from the teacher in the class next to me and keep an eye on the kids inside my classroom?

  Is my temperature going to be checked daily before being allowed to enter the building?

  Are the kids going to have to wear masks?

  Is the school board going to have to change the dress code to allow for masks?

  Are the kids going to have to have dress-coded masks? 

  Are the kids going to have to do temperature checks?

  How are the kids going to socially distance while riding the bus?

  How are the kids going to socially distance while in the hallway?

  How are the kids going to socially distance in the classroom?

  Is outside school going to become a thing?

  How am I going to handle outside school? 

  Am I going to have to write kids up if they refuse to wear masks? BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT WILL HAPPEN. 

  Am I going to have to write kids up for touching each other?

  Am I going to have to write kids up for sharing food?

  How’s the cafeteria and lunch going to work? If they have to eat lunch in classrooms with their teachers, I might lose my mind. Or get the teacher’s union involved. 

  Am I going to have to wipe down desks and chairs in between classes?

  If I have to do that, who is watching kids in the hallway?

  Is the school day going to have to be longer to accomodate for lost instructional minutes because of after each class cleanings?

  Oh god, trying to crowd control 200 8th graders in the hallway. 

  Who’s going to pay for all the Clorox wipes and Lysol used at school? 

  Are kids going to try to steal toilet paper?

  Am I going to have to write kids up for not washing their hands in the cafeteria before they eat?

  Do I need to be prepared to teach from home again? I succccckkkkkkk at making videos and hate being on a screen. I’m the WORST at it and have never liked being video recorded. 

  How are they going to disinfect the library books?

  Is passing out paper documents to students going to be illegal?

  If I have to go to a paperless classrooom, how am I going to keep track of everything? My Google Drive is as disorganzied as a middle school boy who treats his backpack as a garbage can. I’m of the staunch opinion that digital files don’t really exist because they’re intangible. (Not really, but you know what I mean, right?) 

  How do I rearrange my Google Classroom so it’s easier for students to locate assignments because I might not be with students all of the time? 

  Can I convince the other teachers on my team to all organize their Google Classrooms the same way so kids don’t have to figure out 6 different organizational methods?

  If we have to switch in and out of distance learning and face to face learning, am I finally going to have to break down and use Remind? All of my assignments and due dates are posted on Google Classroom–in one place. Why do I have to do more work and post the same shit through another format? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. 

  Will I be allowed to write kids up for being asshats during a Zoom?

  How does virtual detention work? 

  Can I be in charge of designing and implementing virtual detention? That sounds cool as shit. GIVE ME THE REINS. I WANT TO INNOVATE DAMMIT! How can I make it as much like The Breakfast Club as possible but rated G? Step one, befriend someone who works for Zoom and convince them to make a The Breakfast Club background . . . 

  Is school just going to be completely different forever?

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged 2020-2021 school year, distance learning, education, english teacher, middle school teacher

• A Teacher Poem: Buzz Words

  Posted at 11:17 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 25, 2020

  

  begin with the end in mind, AKA backward design
  Common Core and 504
  ELL, STEM, and IEP are not absentee (But if they were, you’d have to let them make up the work, for sure.)
  collaborate and debate
  Claim retired, and its replacement is assertion; try teaching that to little persons.

  rigor
  response
  reflection
  rubric
  will point you in the right (write?) direction

  facilitate with fidelity; provide actionable feedback . . . (but don’t call in sick unless you’re having a heart attack)
  Is your summative assessment warm or cold? (Grab a blanket–so we’re told.)
  flip the classroom; personalize learning (to get their brains churning)

  What’s the objective? 
  Does it align with the standards?
  How does the curriculum get them college and career ready?

  Scaffold.
  Differentiate.
  Rigor.
  Peer conversations.
  Rigor.
  Text complexity.

  Rigor.
  Rigor.
  Rigor.

  Build relationships. 
  Rigor.
  One to one.
  Rigor.
  Lexile.
  Rigor. 

  Rigor.
  Rigor.
  Rigor.

  TRIGGER WARNING

  The kids still find it boring.

  And by week’s end, the only buzz words we care about are Tito’s, tequila, and Tanqueray (with honorable mentions to happy hour and chardonnay).

  

  Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com

  Posted in poems, poetry, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, english teacher, humor, middle school teacher, poems, poems about teaching, poetry, teacher, teaching, teaching middle school, writing

• A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Guide to Grading Papers at Home

  Posted at 2:16 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on October 19, 2019

  

  Although I manage to grade most student-written essays during school hours, inevitably home grading transpires from time to time. Here’s what my grading process looks like when I do lug home heaps of papers.

  1. Sit at the kitchen table, and empty llama tote bag of dreaded essays.
  2. Shuffle all essays into groups of five, piling them into one tower by alternating stacks perpendicularly.
  3. Grab blue Uniball pen. Fancy pens make grading tolerable. Giggle because the word “Uniball” is funny.
  4. Snap a picture of grading setup, witty teacher caption included, and post it to Insta and Facebook stories.
  5. Realize fifteen minutes has passed. Pick up Uniball. Bust into laughter again. Little Thing hollers, “What’s so funny? Can I see?”
  6. Skim first paper while chuckling. Chuckles dissolve into whimpers of distress because the first essay is ghastly, soul-crushing.
  7. Shuffle the broken paper to stack’s end.
  8. Scan the next five essays without connecting pen to paper, and hyperventilating starts. HOW CAN ALL OF THEM BE PIECES OF POO ON A STICK?????? Question career path and meaning of life. Become convinced of worst teacher on the planet status. Stash those five essays to the back of the pile.
  9. Search for best student writer’s essay. Read it. Faith in humanity is restored.
  10. Glance up and around. Am horrified by the dishes mounded in the sink and clutter-strewn house. Decide to tidy up, clean the toilets, and scrub the master bathroom’s floor with a toothbrush.
  11. Register it’s dinner time, have wasted an entire Saturday afternoon, and cook dinner.
  12. Make husband do dishes in order to get back to grading.
  13. Scroll through Facebook on the ChromeBook for an hour instead with the stack of papers as an audience. Their collective judgment is palpable.
  14. Pick up Uniball. Smirk. 
  15. Trudge through five essays, finally giving feedback.
  16. Decide grading is more fun with wine. Pour a glass.
  17. Down the glass swiftly like a college student shooting a lemon drop.
  18. Grade five more essays in half the time, because wine. Uniball has the time of his life.
  19. Pour another glass, and lose steam quickly after, only grading two more essays. 
  20. Call it a night, and resolve to spend Sunday afternoon at the library grading because Grading. At. Home. Doesn’t. Work.
  21. Tuck a wilted and defeated Uniball into bed, errrr, back into his llama tote bag house.
  22. Decide a blue felt pen is more appropriate for library essay grading. It would be mildly embarrassing to get kicked out for hysterical laughter.

  

  Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 1 Comment | Tagged blogging, blogs, english teacher, funny, grading essays, humor, middle school teacher, students, teaching, writing

• A Poem: English Class Will Never Be Baseball

  Posted at 3:40 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on September 21, 2019

  

  English class will never be baseball.

  Cracking open a book can’t compete with the crack of the bat and the crowd’s cheers for you.

  Fumbling through Homer’s The Odyssey will feel more like fumbling a grounder in the bottom of the ninth during a tied game than hitting a homer to win it all.

  Throwing words around with a pen and paper to write an essay will never rival throwing warm-up pitches in the bullpen.

  The thunk of the catcher’s hand pounding his mitt between curveballs and changeups will never sound like “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” nor The Catcher in the Rye.

  Wry puns and satire will never play hardball in your playbook. Three strikes you’re out and triple plays are more important to you than the rule of threes and idioms.

  Sliding into second and shaking hands at the game’s end will never be sliding into the second act of a Shakespeare play.

  And that’s just fine, sluggers, because English class isn’t supposed to be baseball, but the real MVPs and big leaguers value both.

  

  Photo by Matthew T Rader on Pexels.com

   

  Posted in poems, poetry, reading, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 4 Comments | Tagged baseball, blogging, blogs, english class, english teacher, middle school teacher, poems, poems about teaching, poetry, teaching, teaching boys, teaching middle school, writing

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