Home Training

No home training? That's okay... I provide it at school. Home training. The knowledge to not blow your nose into a crumpled piece of notebook paper and leave it behind for your teacher to pick up. (yuck and yes... it's true) To walk into a classroom in an orderly fashion, to raise your hand to speak, to say ma'am and sir, to not talk back.

I remind my pickles... "I am a mother. I am somebody's mother. Now, I ask you... would you want your mother to be treated the way you treat me?" and that gets them every time. Oh, I'm not beyond guilting my kids into acting right. Not one bit. And it works. The class goes quiet. A few mumble, "No". All get into line.

Home training. Perhaps all of my students have parents who hammer manners hard. Of course they do! But, middle school kids like to flex their muscles. I call my seventh graders "the middle school sophomores" because that is exactly who they are. They are not intimidated like the sixth graders and they don't have their heads on right like the eighth graders. They're mouthy, rude and disrespectful. So, I mama them to death.

Because, really... that's what we teachers are... school parents. We see our kids as many hours (if not more) than their own parents. So, it's up to us to teach basic skills and manners. It's not just academics we teach to this age group... especially not to middle school kids. It's good old fashioned home training.

At school.