Teacher's Guide to the New Year

The new academic year is nearly upon us. New students, old students, books, pencils, classrooms, and grades will all be in full swing in a little more than a week.

An exciting time for parents looking for a little quiet time in their day, but a busy time for teachers. And teacher assistants, too, of course. Really.

Three days into school, this pile of pencils will be missing!

I've created a helpful guide for new teachers, as well as refresher notes for experienced teachers who have foolishly donned their rose colored glasses.

Here are the significant details in a nutshell.

There will be a lot of kids. They will be all sorts of ethnicities. This is okay, as long as they're human. A few may argue with you over that fact, but that, in fact, is normal.

Out of these kids, a handful will be male. The rest will be female. If you're lucky, the numbers of male to female will be even. If not, that's cool too.

Some of the males will cause trouble, as will some of the females. Don't worry too much about who they are. They'll let you know in their own special way just as soon as they are able.

Hopefully, they'll all be wearing clothes. Discourage the discarding of clothes throughout the day. If you don't teach, don't laugh. It's a thing!

Now each one of these unique little beings is different and each one has his or her own name. Confusing, but this, also, is a good thing. Otherwise, the rest of the year will become even more confusing.

The first day can be summed up in one simple word -- chaos. Here's the short answer why...

Take all the ingredients above, mix them together in a single room known as Miss Whoever's room. Add in a peanut allergy. Don't add Johnny next to Junie because he's gross and makes her throw up. Mix Jerry near the board since he can't see. Don't mix Junior near the computer because he has no self-control. And no matter where you mix Jarrell, he'll still lay on his desk bubbling and burbling, pretending to be a fish!

This, of course, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It can, and sometimes does, get worse.

Don't believe me? Just ask any teacher you know. They'll tell you.

Miracles DO Still Happen

My Volvo is trying to get me fired.

I know... I know... It sounds a lot like 'the dog ate my homework' or 'aliens abducted my homework notebook.' But here's what happened. What really happened.

Some weeks back, the key fob to the Volvo broke and fell off my keychain. No problem, though. The keys still work, right? So I woke up this morning only to find the drivers door lock frozen tight.

No problem. I'll just use the lock on the passenger side door and hit the unlock button. Worst case scenario -- I have to crawl across. Oh, yeah! Newer Volvos don't have exterior locks on the passenger side door anymore.

PROBLEM!

After a brief moment of panic, rational thought started to creep back into my brain. Why, I'll simply heat up the key. Brilliant! Someone showed me that trick once and it actually worked.

My first thought was the cigarette lighter. However, if I could get to the car lighter, then I probably wouldn't be stuck in my current situation.

Unfortunately, I don't smoke, so there were no lighters to be found. I did find a grill lighter, though. In fact, I found two. Tragically, they both spent they're last dying moments in my fumbling, frozen hands which were trying desperately to hold the flame and key steady.

On my fourth trip into the house, I found a box of matches. As I reached the car, I discovered the box contained only two matches. No problem, I thought.

On my fifth trip into the house, I found a full box of matches. My still frozen fingers, however, were still having problems holding the matches and key steady and close enough before my matches burned out.

I was beginning to be very late for work. Funny how the panic of an encroaching deadline can invoke creative thinking! A candle! That meant one more trip inside.

A pile of wax covered matches and grill lighters and 10 minutes later, I managed to break into the stubborn vehicle. Miracles DO still happen.

I must have been a sight, standing amidst my arsonist pile while holding my lit candle. I imagined my neighbor, who happens to be one of my first-graders, standing at the window and his possible reaction to the sight across the street.

"Mom! Mom," he probably yelled. "Come quick! My teacher is trying to set his car on fire!"

Technical Genius Turns Teacher Assistant

As a kid, I was a technological wonder and a genius.

Allow me to explain. I wrote a program that featured a little green space ship. The ship lifted off from the bottom of the screen and disappeared out the top. It even had a puff of smoke. I also designed and programmed a video game that I called 'chaos.' It involved a green dot. The dot moved in a seemingly random path around the screen for an infinite amount of time. In hindsight, I should have named it "screensaver" and made millions.

Somewhere between that programming child prodigy and the current 44 year-old teacher's assistant, something changed.

Sure I know how to navigate my school and personal email. I even have a rudimentary knowledge of MS PowerPoint and MS Excel and can utilize them, too. There's no word processing package that I can't handle. But this whole Twitter thing has thrown me for a loop!

In an attempt to tap my inner nerd, I researched Twitter. After some exhaustive research, here are my findings.

Twitter is a proper noun and the name of a popular social networking site. Tweet can be used as a noun or a verb, as well as the occasional adjective. The verb 'Tweet' can be conjugated. I will tweet. I am tweeting. I have tweeted.

And the past tense of tweet is tweeted, not twit. While it is not a 'bad word,' per se, you still don't want to be called or considered one.

Interestingly enough, I now have a Twitter account (@phillip_haworth for those interested). While I am slowly struggling and learning, I seem to be stuck on the wrong side of the learning curve!

My family has gone a little overboard with the new, improved tech-savvy me. They keep making suggestions of other online advertising avenues for my blog, but they sound like nonsense!

Pinterest, for example, sounds like the bad guy's name out of a horror movie. Also, MySpace doesn't have a space. I'm an English major. There should be a space between the 'y' and the 'S.' I couldn't begin to tell you how heavy an Instagram is. And I've finally gotten the hang of Google, so what's this Google Plus mess they're telling me about?!