the girl version of the last post

o, dora!

i don’t like this

one

bit

 

this:

to this:

i’m all for donning inappropriately dressy clothing during outdoor adventures.

but dora’s 10!?

dora better not mess up her ballet flats durings her explorin.

 

in other gross kids dressing like adults news:

http://jezebel.com/5173990/this-little-beauty-queen-insists-shes-smiling-on-the-inside?autoplay=true

is it bad that i laughed at this? a lot?

i like the other girl who’s like “you’re crazy.”

aieeeeeeee

i have this one eight-year-old male student who has a really intense asymmetrical swoopy bangs haircut and he wears an earring on the shorter side. he’s kind of nuts and likes to hide under desks and run up to the board and erase words that i’ve just written. 

the kids’ ideas about appearance and fashion are so different from what i remember mine being. during speeches, they said things like, “and my mom is some fat, but other people don’t think so, but she is” and “rain [the super famous pop star] has small eyes and so he likes to wear sunglasses” and “she is very good skater and long legs and small head so she is very beautiful.” these are KIDS giving these descriptions!

but check this out:

http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_8377

CLICK ON THE SLIDESHOW.

a question for pop stars, not teachers!

so last week, when I felt like wearing skirts and dressing up a bit,

my middle school students (almost all boys) were totally ON - 

they actually paid attention, answered questions, and generally interacted.

this week, when i looked  cruddy from lack of sleep and wore cords and tees,

it was my STUDENTS who tried to sleep, even though i drank a lot of coffee so i could be as enthusiastically on top of my game as ever.

the question is, what do i do with the knowledge that all the teen boys will tune in if i’m lookin fiiiiine whereas they will enter zombie-mode if i’m not?

for the little kid days, i wear more colorful clothes, and try to have interesting earrings with things like birds or little faces etc. truly, when i’m earring-less, they complain – it’s upsetting for them. it’s a bit of the miss frizzle oh-man-what-crazy-thing-is-she-wearing-now-let’s-watch-her-instead-of-trading-our-big-bang-cards effect. i’m comfortable with playing the role of whacky teacher to hold their interest (because it’s fun!) but i just can’t seem to feel ok about being hot teacher (because it’s creepy!), even if it ultimately helps silly adolescent boys pay attention to english class a little more. i’m not tarting myself up or anything, it’s really just a bizarre issue of simply pants vs. (knee-length!) skirts.

this sounds really vain, but i don’t mean it in an i’m-so-hot way(!) – it’s real only in that puberty is real and that i’m young and a bit of a novelty. i mean, when i was that age, i couldn’t stop picturing everyone naked and thinking about everything sexually. it was really really exhausting and awful – i did not want to think about most people this way, but if they had a y chromosome, i couldn’t help it. and maybe i was a freak, but i don’t think so. it’s not something girls are supposed to feel or talk about, so i just tried to shove it in the back of my brain. but for boys it’s generally accepted. soooo, it’s gotta be the same or even more intense for boys!

i guess in the end, i should just try to look professional, wear what makes me feel comfortable, and not think about it EVER. while it’s a little funny, adolescent male attention is also creepy and one of the only teacherly issues i didn’t anticipate. being told, “teacher, you’re so pretty!” is one thing, while being winked at and stroked on the arm by a 14-year-old who pseudo-seductively whispers, “teacher, don’t worry. it’s ok” when i ask him why he didn’t do his homework is another. i’m not gonna not gonna not gonna let this be a worry! it’s just silly! the end!