School kids

Sometimes I think the kids are more interested in my outfit than in poetry. Could that be? Today I wore a chunky belt over my sweater and my students felt the need to comment on it all day. Some were brutally honest about what I could and couldn't wear as a "forty year old woman." It's almost like they thought my writing prompt was "tell me what you think of my outfit" instead of "tell me what you think of this poem." I'm thinking about creating a line of clothing with the necessary Ohio Graduation Test material printed on it. Just think sweaters with poetic devices, belts with the writing conventions rubric, oh the possibilities are endless. Endless I tell you.

In other news, I had three kids stay for detention today. One student asked me, "If I just want to sit in my desk and do nothing, why are you going to give me a DT?" Do you really need to ask? I just don't have it in my DNA to allow someone to forsake an education.

Today, after school, the woman who cleans my room (we'll call her Glenna) and I struck up a conversation. She said she used to want to be a preschool teacher or a veternarian (very similar careers). Her father didn't have the money to send her to school and in her words "that dream just went right down the drain." It's hard to show kids that they are really lucky to have this opportunity. I just hope that if Gov. Strickland really does start tossing money at public schools that students are held accountable too.