Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Truths from High School Open House

I went to Open House at Younger Daughter’s high school on Tuesday.  This is an event where we parents walk through our child’s schedule, and spend about ten minutes listening to each teacher.  It’s not a lot of time, but it helps immensely to put a name with a face, and to get a glimpse of what the kids will be learning. 

I greatly admire all her teachers.  Here’s a bit of what I learned from them.

AP English teacher:  “The Ukelele Club meets on Fridays after school.”

[posted on the wall]
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. 
- Voltaire

American History teacher: “We're going to kill Kennedy on Monday. Get ready for the conspiracy theories!”

Band teacher:  “You have to work really hard in this class to not get an A.”

AP Chemistry teacher:  “The school district has sold its soul to Blackboard.”

[posted on the wall]
TRIUMPH:  Umph added to try.

Economics teacher:  “Here’s how the class stock market game is going to work.  I say to the students, ‘Imagine you have your parent’s retirement fund to invest.’”

Latin teacher:  “Pliny the Younger’s life was saved because of Latin homework.”

[posted on the wall]
Study: the act of texting, eating, and watching TV with an open textbook nearby.


Pre-calculus teacher: “If the students aren’t making any mistakes, they are not learning.”



I do love all these teachers.  They love teaching and it shows.  If it weren't for all the angst of the teenage years, I might want a high school do-over.

7 comments:

Cassi said...

I'll admit, I did not attend the Parents Night at our high school. I have, however, just signed up for PT conferences (which I have to do by myself, since Rob teaches that evening) and I'm looking forward to meeting Emma's teachers. Especially because she likes most of them so much.

Angie said...

Glad she has such terrific teachers! Sounds like fun.

Unknown said...

So, that AP English teacher also is one of the 4 teachers for the yearbook class. He had a couple of wonderful things to say. He opened with 'I teach 3 AP English classes, so I don't have much time for this class.' He then explained that the really bright students stack up on AP classes to increase their GPA, so they no longer take the yearbook class. What a parent in that classroom hears: "Your child is not bright". SIGH. But Noah has a couple of wonderful teachers, as well as 3 other yearbook teachers (who hopefully don't share the one man's opinion), so c'est la vie. My last open house ever!!!

Common Household Mom said...

Ami, all I can say is "Ugh!" What a lousy thing to say. I'm glad to hear he is not the only one for yearbook class.

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

Methinks you had an excellent evening.
Our open house was also on Tuesday night, but I was a bum and did not attend. It might have been because I'm thoroughly tired of attending open house nights (our 4th kid is now in 10th grade) or it might have been because it went to 8:30pm and the kid needs a ride home from karate at 7:30pm. Or it might have been the glass of strong beer from the new local craft brewery I had at 5pm (it impaired my give-a-darn). But now I feel guilty.

Anonymous said...

THAT is some clever stuff! Makes me wish I could be so pithy...inspires me to step up my game.

The Crislers said...

I figure the only way someone could work with teenagers all day, every day, is to have a seriously healthy sense of humor intact and functioning, and all those teachers sound HILARIOUS.