Music To My Ears

For those of you who are teachers, you will certainly appreciate this. And for those of you who aren't, you will certainly be able to relate.

How many times do students say "But we aren't doing anything in here!" or "Why don't we ever do anything?" or "Can we have a free day today?" (all this in a whiny voice of course)
Now, if you aren't a teacher, I am sure you can remember feeling like you never did anything in class. Each day was a colossal waste of time, right? Well, things haven't changed. If you ask my students, we don't do anything in my English class. Never mind that we've read countless books, poems, plays, written papers, learned how to write thesis statements, had guest speakers.....I could go on, but you understand. And the worst part is when they go on to the next year and the next teacher and say "We didn't do that in Ms. Langdon's class." Didn't do what?!? Read? Sure. That's right. You sat through 180 days of an English II class and didn't read one thing. Not a single word. Exactly. That's how I keep a job.

However, the music-to-my-ears part happened today. Everyone was dragging in for the last class of the day, groaning because I asked them to get their notebooks out so we could continue taking notes on parts of speech. Yes, we still do that in 10th grade. You'd be amazed. Well, we are all getting settled, and one student calls out "Ms. Langdon! We do TOO MUCH in here!" I couldn't respond. It was priceless. Finally, all my work gets noticed by a student. Amazing.

Oh, and by the way, 12 more school days!