Mrs. Ram's Jams

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    • An Apology Letter to My Students

      Posted at 10:21 am by Jeddarae, on May 22, 2021

      Dear Students,

      I owe you an apology.

      I’m sorry you didn’t get the best version of me this year. I wasn’t the best teacher I could be. Normally I’m vibrant, goofy, and scatterbrained. But my vibrant dulled to lackluster. I lost the goof in goofy and all that was left was “why?” The scatter of my brain didn’t matter because it was scrambled. By the pandemic. By the daunting task of being expected to do everything that I normally do but with less time. By the daunting task of being expected to do everything that I normally do but teach virtually at the same time. By the daunting task of digitizing every single lesson. 

      I’m so sorry I was terrified of going back into the classroom because I have autoimmune diseases and am on medicine that makes me more likely to contract contagious diseases.

      So I’m sorry I kept my distance. Keeping my distance goes against the very nature of my classroom during a regular year. It’s already hard work to differentiate and pull students out for small groups. It’s nearly impossible to do when I wasn’t supposed to be near you. 

      And to my home-based learners, a special apology goes out to you. Sometimes I had to ignore you in order to get through lessons. Sometimes you were an open tab while I worked in other tabs trying to grade or make the next day’s lesson. So I apologize from the bottom of my heart for not giving you 100 percent all of the time. 

      I’m so sorry that I asked so much from all of you, but you’ve got to understand that so much was asked of me, was asked of all your teachers. Some handled it better than others, and I’m still not quite sure which side I’ve landed on. 

      I’m so sorry that you were expected to grow when your world was turned upside down last year, and instead of making sure that you were right side up, that you were whole and nurtured, we had to pretend that it was a normal year.

      I’m so sorry that I had to pretend it was a normal year. 

      I’m so sorry that the state decided that you still had to take end of the year tests. In a year that started late, you still had to sit through three weeks of testing. Three weeks of testing is ridiculous in a normal year, but the higher-ups were so good at pretending that everything was normal this year, that I’m not really sure why I’m so surprised that they made you take those tests. And even though it didn’t count for most students, it ended up counting for you, my eighth-graders taking a high school English class, because you had to pass the test to pass the course. 

      I’m so sorry for so many more things, but I’m end-of-the-year teacher tired. 

      I’m sorry that you didn’t get the best version of me, but I gave what I could–and that’s all that I could give. 

      Please forgive me.

      I’m done pretending it was a normal year.

      I’m done pretending, period.

      But you know what’s real? You. You all were phenomenal despite it all. And I’m so very proud of you and all you accomplished throughout the year. That’s real, and that’s what matters. 

      Love,

      Mrs. Ram Jam

      Posted in education, teaching | 2 Comments | Tagged education, middle school, teach, teacher
    • A Teacher Tale: How I Tortured My Students for My Own Entertainment This Week

      Posted at 10:51 am by Jeddarae, 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. 
      1. 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?
      1. 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. 
      2. 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?)

      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
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