Motivations

Motivation can often be hard for a teacher. Abstract concepts like letter grades often slip right past most students. They understand much more concrete motivators, like "If I don't see an A, B or C, you don't see your PS3 until I do". Thankfully, most parents come through wonderfully with concrete motivators to match our abstract ones. Occasionally, however, other motivators need to be found. Sometimes it's even the child that hopefully motivates the parent to do something.

Take, for example, this conversation I had today with Andrea:

"Andrea," I said, "you haven't done anything in the last 2 weeks. If you don't make up the work soon, you'll end up failing this trimester too and you might have to be a 6th grader again next year."

"I don't care. I'll just learn the same things again." Andrea continues to doodle in her notebook.

"You don't mind being a 6th grader again? But you won't be able to talk to any of your friends."

"I'll see them after school."

(long pause) "Once you get kept back, you usually don't get caught back up again. You probably won't even graduate high school with your friends. They'll be talking about jobs and cars and you'll still be stuck in school."

"Oh, I'm not graduating."

I'm confused now. "But what are you planning to do when you grow up? Most jobs want a high school diploma."

"I'm not going to do anything". Andrea continues to doodle.

(very long pause now. Apparently only one of us has thought this plan through to its logical conclusion) "You need food to eat and a place to live. You want a car? (Andrea nods) Well, that all takes money. How will you get what you want without a job to pay for it?"

"I'm going to live with my mom."

"Until when? 20? (Andrea nods) 30? (Andrea nods) 40? (Andrea nods) You know, your mom probably won't let you live with her when your 40. Most parents expect their children to move out when they're not going to school."

Andrea shakes her head. "No, my mom will let me live with her. She can pay for everything."

(very)

(long)

(pause)

................. and then I walked away.

No matter what Andrea says, I'm pretty sure mom won't be happy with Andrea's "mommie will support me" plan for life. And I sent her an e-mail detailing this conversation, just to be sure.

That's what you'd call ironic....

So I'm sitting here, not particularly minding my own business, when I hear this woman sitting at a table near me. I'm at the brewery again, you see, grading papers, working on my lesson plan, and doing all the general shit I have to do when I'm not, you know, teaching. Anyways, I listen to this person talking about the ills of allowing servers to put lemon in your water. Apparently, they don't wash their hands beforehand and they could have been handling turkey or other contaminants that might get on your lemon and into your water. Mind you, she's still eating here but she's worried about the highly-acidic lemon getting contaminated with harmful bacteria. Less than two minutes later, she allows her young daughter to order a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (remember the peanut butter salmonella problem we've had recently?). She also admitted to driving while talking nearly 8000 minutes on her cell phone a month (how many minutes are there in a month anyways? How many minutes a day would you have to talk to total 8000 freaking minutes a day? Good math question for my students.) and allowed her daughter to run into the brewing room (don't worry, I let her know and she caught the little munchkin).

Reminds me a lot of the people who drive to work everyday yet go on for hours about how they won't step foot in a plane because of the whole Hudson river thing. I keep reminding myself that things like this are supposed to be funny.

Think of it as a VIP account.....

So it's been about nearly two months since school started, and no doubt some of you have received the unfortunate news that your wonderful child, who has brought so much joy to your life, is currently failing in someone's class.  For some, this news comes as no surprise.  For others, this may be the first time you have heard the news and you are shocked.  And always, the question runs through your mind: "Why didn't I hear about this earlier?"

Unfortunately, we can't call everyone.  I may have (and have had in the past) as many as 175 students to monitor.  If I called everyone and spent a scant two minutes on the phone with you, that's nearly 6 hours of phone time!  Oh, and I'm assuming you want more than one phone call this year?

So how do we choose who gets the call?  Well, if your student is passing, you probably won't receive a call unless I have extra time (ha ha hahahahaHAHAHAHA! HAha ha ha...ha......ok, it does happen from time to time) or your child does something wonderful that I'd like to share.  If I sent you a message and didn't get anything back, you're usually near the end of the queue until you contact me.  The student who is tanking fast gets jumped to the front of the line, but let's face it: this is not a VIP pass most parents want their child to earn.

So is there any way to earn the VIP pass without having to destroy your child's grade?  Yes there is.  It's called the teacher's bribe (well, we are government officials....).  We don't get paid much, so we can be bought cheap, believe me.  Below are a list of items that teachers covet as bribes (call it a back-to-school gift if it makes you feel better, but we don't mind shameless bribing):

• cookies, candies, brownies, and anything home-baked. 
• Starbucks gift cards
• fancy or unusual pens and pencils.  Can be expensive, but doesn't have to be.  My favorite pen was a plastic ball-maze pen I got as a freebie at a reading conference.  Until someone stole it (you KNOW who you are).
• bag of coffee or coffee cups
• gift card to (fill in the blank: Cheesecake factory, local teacher store, Safeway, movie theatre)

Unusual teacher "gifts" I've received:

• A bottle of wine (ok, I don't mind getting wine.  But please don't have your child deliver it to me and certainly not before class).
• A certified pre-owned coffee cup.
• A card that said, "My mom said I had to write a card so Merry Chrismas" (sic) on the inside.
• Chocolates from Christmas.  Last year. (check to make sure the box design isn't year-specific)