Every mother knows that moment when “My tummy hurts” turns into mommy covered in barf. My youngest, now three-years-old, has “my tummy hurts” on her nightly litany of stalling techniques.
1. I’m not tired.
2. I want milk! (You have milk) I want different milk!
3. I miss my friends and teachers.
4. I’m scared.
5. (enter pretty much anything, Pringles will make conversation endlessly to keep herself awake)
6. My tummy hurts.
I usually tell her, “I know, honey, your tummy always hurts,” so my guilt was doubled when the vomit tsunami hit. My first thought is always “Intestinal blockage,” followed by “terminal cancer,” but it was either something she ate or a virus. We’re in the waiting period, hypervigilant to every twinge in our own guts. Was that a stomach virus or too many gummy worms.
Why won’t I lay off the gummy worms? No good ever comes of it.
As a result of 2:41 a.m. Round One of Hot Sick (rounds 2, 3, 4, and 5 came about every 20 minutes), I couldn’t attend day one of my Common Core Conference today.
I’m a teacher who enjoys conferences. I have yet to go to a sleep-over one in a hotel (chaperoning Key Club Convention does not count) but hope to someday follow in the footsteps of my friend Tatianna who grades the AP exams every year. I don’t know if people like me are masochists or just “English teachers.” Even if I don’t find the conference helpful or interesting (something that has honestly never happened) I can plan lessons and hang out with people who do what I do for a living.
I thought I’d have more time during summer school, but I had less. Even though it was only one class with fewer than 20 students, five hours a day meant more daily planning than usual. The 12 day semester (that is not a typo) meant no grading procrastination. I had to turn around their assignments immediately. I regularly worked past midnight, woke up at 5:30, and started my class at 7:45 instead of 8:00.
A full third of my students stubbornly clung to the illusion that school started at 8:00. About half of them would not do homework, no matter what it was, how much it was, or how it affected their grade. I don’t believe in homework for my English students as a rule, outside of daily reading. Summer school is a different animal, though. It’s mostly an independent study session guided by a teacher with some review lessons and class participation required. What I cannot understand is parents allowing their kids to do no homework, day after day. These kids come to school with iPhones, nice shoes, manicures on the girls and the latest MP3 player permanently plugged into the ears of the boys.
“Don’t you have any homework?” they ask their children. “No,” the kids reply. Never mind that I post the daily homework assignments on the school website and the parents can easily verify it. How many F grades would I accept as a parent and still believe my daughters when they tell me, “I did it already?”
Zero.
I had several students who showed up every single day, on time mostly, put in their 60 hours, and have nothing to show for it. I’ve never had a teenager of my own, though, so I guess I should be careful about the judgment. I wasn’t going to breastfeed a two-year-old either, as I recall.
I do think it’s ridiculous when the teacher is the one in the class working the hardest.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
The Six People You’ll Meet at an English Teacher Conference
I regularly attend teaching conferences and get new ideas, tips, and tricks for my teaching practice. I’m even willing to tolerate that stomach-churning dread that I’ve been doing it wrong all this time.
Since this book and TV-loving couch potato runs the risk of meeting no new people ever, conferences also provide low pressure opportunities to talk to other people and then promptly forget them forever. The problem is, I don’t meet any “new people.” I meet the same six people every time.
Similar to the five people you meet in Heaven, since it’s for real, there are six people you’ll meet at a teaching conference (one of them isn’t going to Heaven).
1. The Know it All
We’re all used to being the one standing up front with the chart paper, but The Know it All can’t get oriented to the fact that they’re not. They interrupt, direct their comments to the group instead of the facilitator, and have no questions. Email signature: “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. – Kierkegaard”
2. The Resume Giver
Starts every sentence with either “In my class…”, “The way I do it is…”, or “This reminds me of the way that I…” They are similar to The Know it All, but where TKiA is arrogant and intractable, TRG is covering up a core of insecurity and hoping to be validated for what they already do. Or is just off their meds. “This reminds me of something I did as Teacher of the Year.” Also, refers to resume as “curriculum vitae.” Email signature: Board Certified Teacher.
3. The Murtagh, a.k.a. The “I’m too old for this shit” Veteran
Quickly outs herself with immediate long-winded comment about how this will never work. Email signature: Teacher
4. The Noob
Easy to identify by all of the smiling and nodding while taking copious notes. Email signature: a quote by Jean Piaget
5. Mr. Keating
Loves the sound of his own intellect. Teaches outside the box in a Transcendentalist utopia far above you. Writes poetry during breaks, or if you’re really, really unlucky, has brought his guitar. Email signature: A Walt Whitman poem. An obscure one you casual readers have never heard of.
6. The Facilitator’s Pet
Quick on the hand raise just like The Know it All and The Resume Giver, yet lacks the long-suffering “Fine, I’ll help you with your stupidity problem” body language. The Facilitator’s Pet has one goal: be the favorite. They may or may not polish apples. Prefaces questions or comments with “You really blew my mind”, “I’m sure I’m wrong about this”, or “How can someone without your amazing skill implement this strategy?” Email signature: A quote by Waylon Smithers
I’ve inhabited all of these personas to some extent (I don’t play guitar). If I am sitting with a bunch of Murtaghs, I get Nooby and apple-polishy. Fighting my tendency to be a know-it-all is a personal struggle. It isn’t easy to be this bright, talented, and well-read.
I’m struggling to accept that my school year begins in two weeks. I’d like to attend a conference where the objective is to organize all of the information learned at conferences and plan the semester accordingly. In the past year, I’ve gone to an AP conference, a classroom management seminar, and a Common Core reading conference. Now, I need to sit at a ten-top with white linen in a hotel ballroom for 5 days and plan how to incorporate all of this into my lessons. Preferably with a $50 per diem. Where do I sign up for that conference?
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