Some Unsolicited Advice

What Not to do When Teaching.

1) Do NOT write an acrostic to help students memorize the thirteen colonies if you do not have in your hand the list of the actual thirteen colonies.

I thought, "I'm the teacher. I know this." I wrote, "Vicious Mice Navigate Mazes..." You get the idea. I then wrote, "Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine..." After I had finished writing them all, and still had Maryland left. I realized quickly that one of two things had happened. Either we had been counting wrong all these years, and would have to get Miss Betsy Ross to add another white stripe to the flag, and I would be a hero, or I had screwed up. Again, remember the fourteen eyes boring into the back of my head. I stepped back, I sighed, and asked for help. Where to put Maryland? It took five minutes for me to remember that Maine was not a colony. I cursed the book for mentioning it at all (silently, in my head), told myself I had made a career mistake but had to at least finish the period, and erased Maine. I will never, ever forget, and I will unfortunately probably not like Maine as much for awhile.. oh sneaky Maine.

2) Do NOT say things out loud for the very first time in front of students.

I constantly "make up" proper nouns in my head without knowing the actual pronunciation, and today I changed Guinevere's father, Leodogran to LeoDRAGON. Yes, I added a dragon to our Arthurian legend discussion. Ugh.

What to do when you do all of the above (or customize your own version of seemingly "epic" failure).

1) Tell your students you made a mistake. If nothing else, they deserve to know the truth about Maine.

2) Get around people who can guide you away from a ledge jump to the pit of self-loathing, and into laughter. If these people happen to invite you over for dinner and to spend the night, and then happen to give you a build-a-bear, and a plastic crown, you're all the better for it. (Thank you, thank you, thank you Dunham family).

3) Eat cake, but just a little.

4) Go to bed. I'm going now. It's 9:21.

Goodnight, blog world. Tomorrow is a new day.