Defining a rural school is a lot more complicated than what I would have thought. If you would like to see how it is done, you can click here, but I would rather apply Justice Stewart’s famous “I know it when I see it” definition. These are a few reasons that I believe that I teach in a rural district:
1. For many years we had a “Drive Your Tractor to School Day.” This practice was quietly discontinued because it turned out that teenagers were no more responsible with combines than they were with convertibles.
2. Once in a faculty meeting the principal suggested that all teachers should begin to incorporate English and math lessons into their daily teaching to help out with the state test. The Ag teacher complained, “If I have to teach English, then the English teacher should have to teach a little Ag!” As chair of the English department, I stood up to say that was just fine with me. The next day during first period the office secretary rang my room to tell me that I had a visitor waiting for me outside of my door and could I please open it and let him in. When I opened the door I was greeted by a large, black bull and the school’s camera crew. “Could you please teach a short lesson on this animal?” They asked. “Sure,” I said, “This is a bull, just like the lesson I will now give.” The students erupted with laughter, but they weren’t laughing at my wordplay. All of the students knew they were looking at a steer.
3. When I teach 19th century literature I never have to explain what is meant by sorrel or bay.
4. Once during the course of reading a short story I asked some overly eager freshmen, “How many of you have ever. . .?” Before I could finish the question nearly everyone’s hand went up. Then I finished: “. . . had to pull a leach off of yourself after swimming?” To my astonishment, only about three or four hands went down. I spent the next ten minutes going around the room listening to leach stories.
5. Like the “This is my rifle! This is my gun!” military mantra, my students are genuinely insulted when soil is erroneously referred to as “dirt.”
1. For many years we had a “Drive Your Tractor to School Day.” This practice was quietly discontinued because it turned out that teenagers were no more responsible with combines than they were with convertibles.
2. Once in a faculty meeting the principal suggested that all teachers should begin to incorporate English and math lessons into their daily teaching to help out with the state test. The Ag teacher complained, “If I have to teach English, then the English teacher should have to teach a little Ag!” As chair of the English department, I stood up to say that was just fine with me. The next day during first period the office secretary rang my room to tell me that I had a visitor waiting for me outside of my door and could I please open it and let him in. When I opened the door I was greeted by a large, black bull and the school’s camera crew. “Could you please teach a short lesson on this animal?” They asked. “Sure,” I said, “This is a bull, just like the lesson I will now give.” The students erupted with laughter, but they weren’t laughing at my wordplay. All of the students knew they were looking at a steer.
3. When I teach 19th century literature I never have to explain what is meant by sorrel or bay.
4. Once during the course of reading a short story I asked some overly eager freshmen, “How many of you have ever. . .?” Before I could finish the question nearly everyone’s hand went up. Then I finished: “. . . had to pull a leach off of yourself after swimming?” To my astonishment, only about three or four hands went down. I spent the next ten minutes going around the room listening to leach stories.
5. Like the “This is my rifle! This is my gun!” military mantra, my students are genuinely insulted when soil is erroneously referred to as “dirt.”
3 comments:
Ha!
I especially liked number 2.
Sounds like my school -- which, by the way, is in Indiana. 89 in our graduating class, and that's a consolidated school.
Did you show up later at the Ag teacher's door with a copy of Heart of Darkness?
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