Sacre vert! It's that time of year again!

[English-lion]

How was the board game today?

[smax]

[quote="luddite lady"] The kids liked that and deemed Kate to be cool.[/quote]

they've obviously never met her........... (a fackin' joke!)


all this sounds great, LL, keep it up, keep it up.........

[luddite lady]

Well, the little buggers graduated tonight. I managed to cram in the whole story but it took us right up to the last class. It wasn't easy as we missed a bunch of classes due to field trips, assemblies and the like. I had to tell the last chapter orally, and I used a lot of pictures and other visuals to help them understand it. There was a number of laugh out loud moments. I'll post the funny tidbits soon. I'm getting too tired right now to even type simple words properly.

[English-lion]

[luddite lady]

We managed to work our way through to the original end of Le Drapeau vert (the end of the Buffalo show) and all its attendant grammar exercises. Even on this second year, I feel a little queasy when we correct a fictious grammar sentence that states "Il y a du ketchup sur le drapeau!" (There's ketchup on the flag!) Sorry Kel, but I got to teach that damn pronoun en some how. Another one is: "Andy est tombe de la scene." (Andy fell off the stage.) Forgive me, Lil Rock. It's for a good cause.
The girls in the class kept pouring over my photo of the back of the flag in hopes of finding my signature. They begged me to tell them my username, but of course, I wouldn't say.
"It's probably something like IloveStewart#55," teased one girl. They thought I was everyone from Donna to Lydia to animal. If they knew what luddite meant, they'd have found my name for sure. My inability to work the DVD player and my powers to break the photocopier regularly are something of legend at my school. When they asked me about Kellie's handle, I half fibbed and told them Mission Control. They found that signature right away and thought Kellie was too modest for making it so small and down in the corner.
I never finished writing the last chapter about MSG because I realized there would not be enough classes to fully understand it in that format. So, during the last French class before graduation day I read aloud what I had written of that chapter, stopping to ask questions, translate bits and show photograph and other visuals to back me up. One of the visuals was a copy of the confirmation e-mail I had to show to get my ticket from the MSG box office. When one boy, who had been actively participating throughout the unit, saw my real name on the e-mail, he yelled out, "YOU are Madame?!? I thought this was about some friend of yours." Several students did literal headdesks (or should I say tetepupitres) while I stood in stunned silence.
Once I got to where I had stopped writing, I switched to English and just rolled out the rest of the tale. Everyone was really listening, or doing a great job of pretending to. As a lead up to the part about the mini-flags, I pondered aloud "Who was going to have the flag for the last show?"
The response was immediate: "It totally has to be Kellie!"
One kid asked if it was Madame, but this idea got shot down right away. "No! It had to be Kellie." "If it's not Kellie I'm going to be so mad!" "Madame wouldn't do that. It would be like stealing or something."

A bit more later.

[luddite lady]

After the kids argued for a minute about who should be flag bearer at the last show, I pulled out my paper mini-flag from MSG, showed it to them and explained its significance. Most thought it was all pretty cool, but one kill-joy decided that it was counterproductive to use so much paper at a benefit concert supporting a tree planting intiative. I've been subtly and blantantly indoctorinating these kids with the environmental creed for years. But that wet blanket was a bit much even for me. In a pleasant role reversal, I rolled my eyes, said, "Whatever!", and went on with the story. The kids also liked that Stewart got to be a flag-bearer and enjoyed the photos I had printed from the Internet. There was one photo that elle had taken from section 111. It showed the stage and most of section 119, where I was standing. I circled myself in the picture and felt I'd gone a little over the top doing that. But my students really seemed to get a kick out of it and were impressed with my proximity to the stage.

[luddite lady]

Another visual that I passed around the class was my ticket from MSG. Some of the boys seemed the most impressed by the Subway sandwich shop coupon on the back of the ticket. They couldn't believe that I hadn't traded in my ticket for a buck off a sub before leaving New York. They even checked the expiration date to see if it was still good in case I was planning another trip to the States. There's no budding Dietmars in that group.
Graduation day was the next day. Traditionally, most of the grade eight students take the afternoon off to prepare for the evening ceremony. Since I teach them in the morning, we were to have one last class during which I had planned to show them the concert on The Certifiable DVD. But this year's class broke with tradition. Only one kid, who clearly didn't get the memo, showed up for school at all that day. Dammit! I was looking forward to getting paid while sitting around and watching my favourite band in action. So, I showed it to my grade seven class instead. They were all game even though they didn't have a clue why we were watching it. I tried to justify the viewing by telling them that Sting speaks to the audience in Spanish, which is kind of close to French. Plus, I said, both Stewart and Sting know, or at least knew at one point, how to speak French. And Sting wrote "Roxanne" in Paris, I added. The students politely told me to be quiet and just play the concert. Shortly after it had started the principal and the school custodian walked in the classroom. The principal hardly ever comes into my class. She gave me a confused smile while the custodian quipped, "If you're going to show them a concert in French class, at least pick a good band." The principal then defended my choice in music and passed on some info she thought I needed to know. I think the custodian was just there to annoy me. He's a big Rush fan.
The bell rang for recess just as the DVD was showing Stewart warming up the gong for "Wrapped". The kids started to get up to go outside when the unofficial leader of the class exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, he's got a gong! Look at the size of that thing!" Half the class came back and sat down. I told them they could stay for the whole song since it features Stewart playing so many cool percussion instruments. Most of them stayed. Things bode well for next year.

[DirtyMartini]

Haha. Appreciation of the gong is ageless.

Thanks for the stories, llady.