WIERD BETH

In thirty years of teaching, easily the strangest class I ever had was 5th period Geography around 1982. This class was dumber than a doorbell but we made it fun. The class was made very interesting by a girl named Beth. She was nice but pretty clueless about everything but liked attention. The class was loud, right after lunch and all and whenever we had a discussion, Beth would raise her hand. Everyone knew she would say something stupid so whenever she raised her hand, everyone yelled "shut up". Then Beth would ask some dumb question and everyone would roar in laughter. Then a boy named Kenny raised his hand and said he had a nickname for Beth. I said what is it? He said we should call her "WIERD BETH". I said no, we can't do that(but it sounded good to me) but then Beth stands up and says it was fine with her so the rest of the year, everyone called her WIERD BETH. This class hardly would do anything and most of them were flunking so one day I had an idea. These guys would always like to arm wrestle when they came into class so I told them if everyone (even WIERD BETH) could get their work done by 12:45, I would organize an arm wrestling tournament in our class. IT WORKED. The last month or two, we had arm wrestling tournaments in my Geography class for the last 15 minutes almost every day with the tournament draw sheet on the board. We were way out in the portables so I wasn't worried about the administration coming out. The crazy thing is, the undefeated champion was a girl. She was a rodeo type with a circle mark on the back pocket of her blue jeans from her chewing tobacco can.(no kidding). We would put two desks together and everyone would stand in a circle and cheer it on. It got really loud and one day the Spanish teacher next door actually came over and opened the door and saw everyone roaring. It was a little embarrasing but who cares. Four years later, WIERD BETH came back to see me after she had left Lodi High. I was teaching Freshman Health & Safety at the time and it was in the Fall and I had the door open doing notes on the overhead projector. So in comes WIERD BETH but she didn't walk in the door-she rode into the room right in the middle of class on her bicycle (riding it). So I introduced her to my class as a former student named WIERD BETH. She smiled, left, and said good-bye. I'll never forget WIERD BETH.
P.S.-I actually ran into WIERD BETH about five years ago at a banquet. I recognized her right away and told my wife, "you're not going to believe this but there's WIERD BETH". 20 years after the bicycle incident, we both recognized each other and I went over to her and we had a nice talk. I love running into former students and players-especially people like WIERD BETH

Strange P.E. Notes

I get a lot of P.E. notes from parents saying why their son or daughter should not participate in P.E. I put them in a file folder and save them. Since the school year is almost over, I thought I would share a few of the more interesting notes. Hope you like them as much as I did.

1. Mr. Marks-"My soon can't run and maker exercises because her fingernail is soreness."
2. " Melanie can't play P.E. at all exceped vally ball untel docter sees her."
3. "Mr Marks-Can Erin walk around the pool in the water? She has a whole in her right eardrum,that canot get watr in it, Erin also not at the good of a swimer."
4. " Cold you please x-cuse shamim from swimind? "
5. "My son is can not go under the water he have ear pro blem so he can stay in water. If u hav any qustion, call me at ___ ______".(I thought I better not call him)
6. "My daughter Melissa can't attend swimming-she is on her month."
7. " For Whom may conern-I want to thank you for your efforts to helping son in the school. Because of his problems in the English Language. I want to let you know that my son told me that he doesn't like some things like swiming and wearing a short in Jem so pleace don't call on him to do that and thank you for your understanding."
8. "Armando to puede nacer PE porque tiene dolor de garganta. I mucha tos I gripa"? (OK-I guess so).

I Love P.E.- Wild and Crazy Huh???
I Love P.E.-It's Crazy and Wild

The Stupidest Thing Ever-Co-Ed PE

I have a great job. I teach P.E. most of the day. I can dress in shorts and some college T-Shirt and am a part of a great department. It's crazy and high energy but lots of fun. There is one problem though---CO-ED PE. Whoever thought of that?You maynot believe it but when I took P.E. in high school, we separated the sexes and it was great. You could do sports like football, basketball, water polo, and wrestling. Yeah, we still have team games but the girls tend to stand around and boys like to talk to the girls instead of playing hard. And the exercises-we used to do 50 push-ups,six count burpees, pull ups, mountain climbers,rope climb,obstacle courses, and peg boards. Now we have to water down everything so both the boys and girls can do them. This is an example of a government law made by politicians who have never been in a classroom. Title IX,which was made law to give girls equal opportunity has gone way too far. I am a big proponent of girls sports and both my daughters played girls sports and I coached both girls basketball and tennis for numerous years. When my wife and I were in high school, we didn't even have girls sports and she easily would have been good enough to play so I think girls sports are great.In fact,atmy school, the girls teams do way better than the boys almost every year. My classes are now in a swimming unit. Who do you think are swimming all of their laps and diving off the diving boards doing flips and belly flops and who do you think are doing everything they can to get out of the pool because"my hair will get wet"or I am on check???? I say it is high time to separate the sexes and bring back real Physical Education to our schools.

The Adventures of a High School Teacher

Not sure if anyone is really interested in what's it like being a high school teacher but I am thinking of writing a weekly blog from a teacher's view. I am a high school teacher for the last 30 years currently teaching Social Studies and P.E. I am not the typical teacher because even though I am 53, I think and act a lot younger than that. One good thing about teaching is that you are around young people so much that it keeps you thinking young. I love teaching and couldn't think of anything else I'd rather do. I once tried out to be an astronaut in the "Teacher In Space" program but didn't make it past the first cut. Good thing because that was the mission that blew up in space just after liftoff and the teacher and the other six astronauts died. I like to give my students nicknames and many of my nicknames and assignments are based on sports and athletics. I call many of my best students "All Stars". I like to do sports based assignments in class like review football or baseball, and instead of learning the state capitals, we learn the NFL football cities and we always "Ro-Cham-Bo" in my class to see which team gets to go first(2 out of 3 since anyone can get lucky and win once). I've seen it all since teaching, lots of great kids, coaching my kids in tennis and basketball, good faculty friends, but I have also had a loaded gun in my class, drug sales during Silent Reading Time, a student having a heart attack and near death in a P.E. class, and a few of the craziest students you would ever want to meet. (They both had nicknames). So my main goal in teaching is to learn while having fun and enjoy the students.. So here we go. Let me know if you want to hear more.