Was the title of the English lesson in the second year middle schoolers (8th graders) book.
Yeeeeep.
The next three lessons are about the landmines in Cambodia and how children who go out ot play in the fields and forests get seriously injured or killed. It also shows a pciture of a little elementary school boy with only one leg going to school.
Vocab words include "landmine, kill, danger, injure, children/child, dangerous, and specialist" the grammar points taught are "use vs is used", "was cleaned vs cleansed" and "made vs was made by".
Now, maybe I just have a bad memory, but I have no recollection of any of my foreign language books in school ever having a chapter discussing how kids are being blown up by landmines.
And again, maybe its just me but....that title, "landmines and children", its ridiculous right? You have to laugh cause its so "wait what? for real" right?
Tell me if it's just me. Cause I definitely gave a little "for real?" laugh when my teacher pointed out the lesson we were going to do. And I think that definately offended her juuuust a bit.
She pointed out that the book talks alot about different international things as the topics of the english conversations, and I, trying to fill my grave back in as quickly as possible, totally agreed that i was great that the book was so culturally aware, and that it wasn't *funny* to me, as much as just *surprising* that a book for 8th graders would talk about landmines.
I don't think she bought it though. Chalk another up to a clash of cultures.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Its indestructible! And its everywhere!!
This milk just won’t give up! It’s been 6 months and I’m still having milk issues!! It’s just with my middle school too. All my elementary schools, all *6* of them, have gotton the fact that I won’t drink the milk, and I don’t want the milk. I don’t know what becomes of the milk, but they’ve accepted the fact that I bring my own school approved drink (cold bottled green tea), and when I’m given my school lunch, it simply comes without a drink. I stick my bottle on the trey, and we’re good to go.
My my middle school just Does. Not. Get. It.
So first a little recap about what I do at lunch for my middle school. Remember that there’s a teacher’s room, where all the teachers have their desks and such, and continue to return to between classes. In the teachers rooms there are three stations, where teachers have their desk. The “teacher home base” if you will, rather than how it is in America, with teachers having their own room All the 1st year student (7th grade) teachers sit together, all the 2nd year (8th grade) student teachers sit together and all the 3rd year student (9th grade) teachers sit together. These teachers may still teach students of different grades, but they take responsibility for the students in their group.
Despite this, there are “home room teachers”. Then there are teachers and staff who aren’t home room teachers, like me, the school nurse, etc. All of the teachers without a homeroom go to a class within their grade to eat at, whereas the staff (the school nurse, the principle and vice principle, the school clerk, etc), take their lunches in the teacher room or the like. The students and the teachers (except for me), receive their lunches in the class room, with students doling out the lunches onto plates and seting them on treys for each student in the classroom, and the teachers eating there. The staff however has their lunches doled out by the two woman custodians who work at the school. Their lunches are set on a counter in the teacher’s room, to be picked up whenever the staff member is ready to eat.
I’m a special case. Even though I’m a “teacher”, and while technically I sit with the 2nd year teachers, I still divide my lunch time between every class of ever grade, rather than just the 2nd grade. Every day I eat lunch with a different class. Thus my lunch is put out in the teachers room with the staff member’s. I grab my trey from the teacher’s room, then walk to whatever classroom I’m eating lunch with.
So back to the milk.
When I first came here, I tried to drink the milk.
That was epic fail. It was *so* thick, that just drinking half of it got me sick to my stomache. And there’s no way to dispose of a milk carton that still has milk in it.
Believe me, I tried. There is No. Way. I treid asking, and they don’t even comprehend the situation.
So next, I would take the milk, but just not drink it, instead sneaking into the teachers’ fridge and slipping my milk in there after lunch time.
This however began to worry me that some day I’d be officially caught, especially as the fridge, a tiny thing to begin with, began to be filled exclusively with my milks.
So during lunch I began to give my milk carton to one of the students. Extra food (this included milk) is doled out to the students, usually boys, who want it. So I would put my milk on the desk with the other extra milks, feeling nice and smug when it was doled out later to the students as a milk extra.
However, this bite me in my butt later when one of the teachers realized that there was one extra milk than there were kids absent in his class. He began to question and scold his kids, demanding to know whose milk this was just as I was about to leave. I had to go back and be like “whoops that’s mine”.
The shame! The shaaame!
Thus I’ve never done that again.
Next, and most recently, I began to just take the milk off my trey and leave it on the counter in the teacher’s room. I noticed a couple other milks there, so I thought maybe this was where the teachers’ extra milk went, and it could just be disposed of in whatever teacherly fashion.
For about 2 days this seemed to work. Then one of the custodian ladies was like “Is this your milk?” and I was like “ummm yep.” And she was like “I’ll just put it in the fridge then from now on, k?”
And I was happy. Ecstatic even. YES! Finally there are begining to get it! After 6 months, they are realizing that I *do not want the milk*!!
This worked for about a day.
And then, at the end of my work day, just as I was about to leave on the second day of my milk-less state, the custodian comes up to me and sets two cartons of milk onto my desk.
“Here you are!” She said, beaming at me, “Here’s your milk, don’t forget to take it home ok?”
……..
Well, at least I’ll now have plenty of milk to make mac and cheese with…..
Now I must got and teach my kids about landmines.
No joke.
My my middle school just Does. Not. Get. It.
So first a little recap about what I do at lunch for my middle school. Remember that there’s a teacher’s room, where all the teachers have their desks and such, and continue to return to between classes. In the teachers rooms there are three stations, where teachers have their desk. The “teacher home base” if you will, rather than how it is in America, with teachers having their own room All the 1st year student (7th grade) teachers sit together, all the 2nd year (8th grade) student teachers sit together and all the 3rd year student (9th grade) teachers sit together. These teachers may still teach students of different grades, but they take responsibility for the students in their group.
Despite this, there are “home room teachers”. Then there are teachers and staff who aren’t home room teachers, like me, the school nurse, etc. All of the teachers without a homeroom go to a class within their grade to eat at, whereas the staff (the school nurse, the principle and vice principle, the school clerk, etc), take their lunches in the teacher room or the like. The students and the teachers (except for me), receive their lunches in the class room, with students doling out the lunches onto plates and seting them on treys for each student in the classroom, and the teachers eating there. The staff however has their lunches doled out by the two woman custodians who work at the school. Their lunches are set on a counter in the teacher’s room, to be picked up whenever the staff member is ready to eat.
I’m a special case. Even though I’m a “teacher”, and while technically I sit with the 2nd year teachers, I still divide my lunch time between every class of ever grade, rather than just the 2nd grade. Every day I eat lunch with a different class. Thus my lunch is put out in the teachers room with the staff member’s. I grab my trey from the teacher’s room, then walk to whatever classroom I’m eating lunch with.
So back to the milk.
When I first came here, I tried to drink the milk.
That was epic fail. It was *so* thick, that just drinking half of it got me sick to my stomache. And there’s no way to dispose of a milk carton that still has milk in it.
Believe me, I tried. There is No. Way. I treid asking, and they don’t even comprehend the situation.
So next, I would take the milk, but just not drink it, instead sneaking into the teachers’ fridge and slipping my milk in there after lunch time.
This however began to worry me that some day I’d be officially caught, especially as the fridge, a tiny thing to begin with, began to be filled exclusively with my milks.
So during lunch I began to give my milk carton to one of the students. Extra food (this included milk) is doled out to the students, usually boys, who want it. So I would put my milk on the desk with the other extra milks, feeling nice and smug when it was doled out later to the students as a milk extra.
However, this bite me in my butt later when one of the teachers realized that there was one extra milk than there were kids absent in his class. He began to question and scold his kids, demanding to know whose milk this was just as I was about to leave. I had to go back and be like “whoops that’s mine”.
The shame! The shaaame!
Thus I’ve never done that again.
Next, and most recently, I began to just take the milk off my trey and leave it on the counter in the teacher’s room. I noticed a couple other milks there, so I thought maybe this was where the teachers’ extra milk went, and it could just be disposed of in whatever teacherly fashion.
For about 2 days this seemed to work. Then one of the custodian ladies was like “Is this your milk?” and I was like “ummm yep.” And she was like “I’ll just put it in the fridge then from now on, k?”
And I was happy. Ecstatic even. YES! Finally there are begining to get it! After 6 months, they are realizing that I *do not want the milk*!!
This worked for about a day.
And then, at the end of my work day, just as I was about to leave on the second day of my milk-less state, the custodian comes up to me and sets two cartons of milk onto my desk.
“Here you are!” She said, beaming at me, “Here’s your milk, don’t forget to take it home ok?”
……..
Well, at least I’ll now have plenty of milk to make mac and cheese with…..
Now I must got and teach my kids about landmines.
No joke.
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