No Gum Allowed!

Here's my funny teaching moment for the day:

The students just finished doing a worksheet, finding information about characters by what other characters did and said. I was asking for volunteers to share what they had discovered in their groups.

I look out into a sea of glossy eyes. Very few hands raised.

Vanessa has a giant bubble blown, and it is just sitting there in front of her face like that scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off:

Yeah, totally like that.

So I say, "Vanessa, spit your gum out," and attempting to just brush over the gum issue and get right back into the discussion I say, "anyone else?" meaning: "anyone else want to share before we move on?"

One boy lets out a big sigh, heaves himself out of his seat, and walks over to the trash can where he spits his gum out too.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

I said, "Well, I wanted volunteers for the characters worksheet, but yes, spit out the gum too."

Oh, how I chuckled.

It's like that time Rachel insisted that The Creamery used whoppers in their shakes. And I told her she was CRAZY! We almost lost our friendship that night. Turns out, she was talking about the chocolate candy; I was talking about Burger King.

8th Graders and Pauly Shore

I feel so lucky to have a mother who was part of Beatlemania. She instilled in me a love for those 4 men, and I in turn stole all of her Beatles records.

Kelly and I now have a nice little collection of records and this sweet turn table that I bought at a St. Vincent DePaul in Kentucky for 3 dollars 10 years ago.

So, when teaching setting to my 8th graders this week, I brought in my record player and some Beatles records to get us in the 60s mood for The Outsiders.

The lights were off because we were taking notes from a PowerPoint and I said, "Let's go back in time... It's 1965 and ya'll just came over to my house to hang out. 'Hey guys, wanna sit around and listen to my new Beatles record?!'" At this point the students were held in suspense as I picked up an actual Beatles record and pulled it out of its case in front of them:

Gasps.

WHAT IS THAT?!

IS THAT A RECORD?!

IS THAT REAL?!

HOLY CRAP!

I had to shush them, "Calm down, guys. Yes it's real. Do you want to listen to it?"

Of course they did.

Their eyes were huge the whole time the record was playing and questions were sporadically yelled out, "How does it work?" "Is there only one song?" "That's huge!"

I had no idea showing 8th graders a record would be so much like Encino Man.

They totally made that face. And I was totally Pauly Shore.

It was a dream come true.