DONE!

For better or for worse, Fall semester is done, at least from my end. That means I can take a break from things like waw consecutives and Deuteronomic histories, at least for a little while. Maybe I'll get some fun reading done. Or better yet, maybe I'll get some SLEEP.

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Mrs. Redd's Last Day

Part of me wants to shout "Freedom!!!!!" Braveheart-style, but I know it's really not about that. I'm going to have a whole lot more responsibility on my shoulders very soon.

Still, I do feel like a huge burden has been lifted this evening (though the weight of my baby belly is still hanging around!).

Today was my last day teaching students this semester. Bittersweet, because I will miss the busyness and bustle and the "aha!" lightbulbs that go off every once in a while. (Today, I was rewarded with an "aha" moment from one of my students when she "got" the meaning of a poem she had been struggling to understand. Yay!)

I wish I had a camera with me today, if only to capture one particular moment. Two students who had been struggling with their grades (we have grade reports every 3 weeks--they had failed the first one) finally brought their grades up to passing-- one girl in particular brought her grade up almost 30 points in 3 weeks! One boy, a slight, blond-haired young man with a wicked sense of humor, had been particularly frustrated over Romeo and Juliet. Well, when he saw his grade was a C, he jumped up and did this crazy silent victory dance around the bookshelves (we were in the school library, after all). His redhead friend joined him when she saw her B average, and I doubled over with laughter at the sight of these two freshman kids, gyrating and raising their hands in the air, boogeying to their own imaginary music through the stacks in the non-fiction section.

So, even though I begin my maternity leave with the relief of knowing that there is absolutely nothing I have to worry about concerning my classroom--there is a competent long-term substitute English teacher in my place who actually has an M.A. in the subject, I actually completed preparing ALL my lesson plans and assignments for the entire rest of the semester (which, alas, never happened before now), and I graded my last set of assessment tests for a long, long, LONG time to come-- there are still days when I will miss snapping fingers after a poem recital a la the Beat Poets, discussing the sexual orientation of Shakespearean actors ("You mean Juliet was played by a BOY?!") and creating Langston Hughes/MLK Jr. conspiracy theories ("He totally stole that Mrs. Redd. Hughes had the dream first!"). I will miss my many-windowed classroom with a view of the courtyard, with the turtles that somehow manage to remove themselves from the lily pond before it freezes over in winter and the chorus of frogs you can hear on a spring day with the windows open. I'll miss the new program that came with our new textbooks which formats and scrambles original tests for you and prints out multiple versions at the click of a mouse. I'll actually miss the cafeteria food (they served my favorite meal today-- real chicken fingers, homemade vegetable soup, a baked potato, steamed broccoli, pears, and chocolate pudding for dessert) and especially the cute little lunchroom ladies that always served me extra "for the baby." I'll miss the wonderful folks I got to work with, teachers who are so dedicated that they work late hours even on weekends without overtime and support staff that go the extra mile. I'll even miss the students.

But there is one thing I will never, ever miss-- waking up before dawn with the dreaded hope that there could be some sort of snowstorm or natural disaster or electricity outage or gas shortage making it possible for me to stay home from work because I just don't want to go to school today.

For my new job, I won't have to leave the house or worry about being late. I have a feeling it won't matter much if I never get a day off because of a freak lightning accident or a rat infestation or an Atlanta version of an ice storm. I won't mind the poopy diapers and spit-up and other bodily fluids (at least the odor can't be worse than smelly gym feet mixed with an illegal stink bomb and a heavy dose of cheap perfume) because they will be the product of someone I love more than any other kid in the world. I think I'm going to enjoy my new occupation as a concierge/chauffeur/deliverer of milk/custodian/chef/launderer/diaper service employee/finder of lost things and reader of children's books. I think I'm going to enjoy just being a mom. Hooray for parenthood.

Funny things happened on the way...

As I get closer to maternity leave, I've been reflecting on my past two years as a teacher. I work in a public high school, which at times can be frustrating, rewarding, challenging, hilarious, heartwarming, surprising, and usually all of those and more all at once. I thought I'd share some of my favorite "lighter moments," mostly because I was thinking of them this morning while laying in bed unable to go back to sleep. I apologize if I appear to be making fun of any of my students. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh.

Last year, I had a new student, a short, wiry kid who was new to the school. He liked to wear basketball jerseys of famous players. One day, as he was walking in front of me in the hall, I noticed he had a large, very expensive price tag sticking out of the back of his Michael Jordan jersey. My first thought was that perhaps his parents never told him to take off the tags before you wear something, and I said "You might want to stick that tag back in your shirt." He replied, "But I want everyone to know how much it costs!"

While reading Homer's Odyssey last semester, we came across the description of Odysseus pouring out a libation to summon the departed as he enters the Land of the Dead. My students, unable to understand the concept of "libation," asked me to explain it a little further. So I used an illustration I thought they'd connect with-- pouring a 40 out on a street corner for a friend who had been shot, like in Tupac's song. THEN they got it.

Recently, while watching the Zepherelli film version of Romeo and Juliet, we came to the scene in Act III where Romeo and Juliet wake up after their first night together as a married couple. I fully expected them to giggle at the partially unclothed scenes, but I didn't expect what one female student exclaimed: "It's too early in the morning for this!" "Too early for what?" I asked. "For the kissing and stuff! It's gross!" At first, in my confusion, I thought she was meaning it was too early in the morning to WATCH such a display of affection (it wasn't even 9:30 yet), but then she added, "What about morning breath? Ewww." Ah, ha. "Just wait until you're married," I told her, "You'll understand one day."

One of my ninth grade classes can be, how shall I put this, a bit "unruly" at times. On one such occasion, we were attempting to have a class discussion when a silly argument broke out among the students and they began behaving more like 3 year-olds than teenagers, with some yelling and "nya-nyas" thrown in for good measure. A bit frustrated after it continued despite my efforts to steer the conversation back to whatever topic we were supposed to be discussing, I sighed and noted that "Sometimes, some of you make me think that the phrase 'mature ninth grader' will always be an oxymoron." One young lady immediately raised her hand in disgust. (I have to mention here that her mother is a former English teacher.) "Mrs. Redd, you can't call us that!" "Excuse me?" I replied. "Mrs. Redd, I'm going to tell--you just called us all morons!"

Other students actually had to explain it to her repeatedly before she got it. Now, everytime we bring up "oxymoron" in class as an actual literary term, that same student haughtily exclaims, "Remember when you called us morons?" I suppose students these days like to remind others of their ignorance?! (Actually, that's probably true. They don't care if they get called on and don't know the answer. In fact, sadly, they are often proud of not knowing something. Sigh.)

Earlier in my pregnancy, at about 7 months, the topic of my huge ice-water-filled QT mug somehow came up in my World Lit class (I should post a picture someday--the 1-inch thick insulated plastic mug really is bigger than my head). One young lady asked, "Is that filled with coffee? Mrs. Redd, can you drink coffee or hot tea when you're pregnant?" Another student, a new father himself recently wise in the ways of pregnant women , answered for me: "Well, you're not supposed to have caffeine but you can drink decaf and I think you can have like one cup a day..." "No!" the first student exclaimed, "I mean, like hot soup. If you eat hot soup, won't it burn the baby?" Amid our laughter (I couldn't help myself), another girl answered her: "Of course not! The baby's in a protective sac in her stomach!"

I think we exhausted a good ten minutes that day at those poor girls' expense explaining concepts they should've grasped in their mandatory health class the year before. I remember distinctly pointing to my abdomen saying, "Your stomach is up here, while your uterus is lower down, here. Although on me, it's encroaching upon my rib cage at the moment!"