Rules: Write six things most people don’t know about one of your specialties.  This could be hobbies or professions or whatever. And then pass it along to six unsuspecting fellow blogging buddies and guilt them into playing, too (kidding...  kind of...)

Oh Davida from Glue 4 Families--thank you for thinking of me—I would love to complete this tag ;) I have been out of the classroom for almost a year. *tear*  But the people that know me well know that I love to teach, so I’m going to tell you about being a middle school English teacher because that is what I know something about!


1.       Yes, that greasy stain on your child’s essay is probably pizza.  Or it could be leftover spaghetti—whatever.  We English teachers probably spent half of the night curled up on the couch trying to listen to a smidgen of television and eat dinner while our husbands played with our daughters and sons--all the while we corrected papers.  And more than likely there were at least three references to a dark, stormy evening…  There's a long red-ink scratch mark trailing off of your kiddos paper?  Likely your English teacher fell asleep grading again…

2.      Teachers are required to have the largest bladders in the world.

3.      English teachers work countless hours during the school year—and we also spend much of our summers planning and scheming for the following school year.  It is not a 8-3 job like some people might think.  Beyond the regular teaching hours—teachers spend time before and after school tutoring, conferencing, correcting, reading, planning, returning emails, you get the point…  Most English teachers give up at least one weekend day to assess their students’ work.  We do this because we have a passion for teaching—not for the pay…  *see video below…

4.      English teachers love children.  English teachers love reading.  English teachers want to instill in their beloved students this same sense of wonder and excitement for good literature… If you want to get on an English teacher’s good side, enlist them in conversation about an how an interesting book relates to your life or a lesson you once learned, or how you found a wonderfully crafted sentence you'd like to share... If you want to get a middle schooler to read a book—tell ‘em that it’s been banned.

5.      Alot is two words: a lot…   Middle school English teachers know this, and they will correct this error everytime they see it—which is about 50 times a day.  Middle schoolers also mix multiple comma splices and run-on sentences in with their fragments… This may drive English teachers a little crazy—but we get over it!  Aargh!

6.      Middle school English teachers are really not all that bad—at least I don’t think. We don’t run our nails down chalk boards for the fun of it, celebrate Emily Dickinson’s birthday (December 10, 1830), send kids off to find 4 ft yard sticks from neighboring teachers (okay, just once in awhile), kill old men in their sleep because their filmy eyes are irritating (Poe reference)…  We are human beings, too, and we have lives!  Inevitably, you will run in to us somewhere…  “Mrs. Welding, Mrs. Welding,  like, what are you doing here? Like, I didn’t know that you, um… have a life…” Yep, we English teachers do…

I’m hoping that these others that Davida tagged will play along, too—because I’d love to learn a bit more from them…

Matt Speaks

Small Town Mommy

Stacy’s Random Thoughts

And I’d also like to add to that list—consider yourself tagged—the following six blogs as required…

The Mom Buzz

Running Over Fifty

Little Miss Hannah

Frogs in my Formula

Better Spines

Mommy’s Gibble Gabbles

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