#8 Allow students to prank you

This might have to be a two- or three-parter.  So many pranks.  The very first one though was my first year of teaching.  A movie had just come out named "Varisty Blues" in which there was a teacher named Miss Davis who moonlighted as a stripper.

As you can imagine there were many jokes to be made (my last name is Davis if you're confused at this point).  Add to that the fact that it was my first year of teaching and I was only about 4 years older than some of my students and pranks were inevitable. The biggest joke was a line from the movie when Billy Bob says: "Miss Davis will you go to the prom with me?"  So I heard that a lot.  

If I haven't mentioned it before, when I first moved to Mooreland I rented a house that was basically almost across the street from the music building.  And, once again, this is a small town...everybody knows everybody's business.  So one morning I got up to come to work walked out the front door and remembered I left my scores in the car.  I walk around the side of my house to the garage and open the door.  Guess what's shoe polished on my windshield: "Miss Davis will you go to the prom with me?"

Funny.  I did eventually make it to the prom...but not with a student, as a sponsor several years later.  The other prank that was pulled on me my first year was in one of my high school choir classes.  All the football boys in that class switched names with each other and I learned them wrong.  The girls were always giving me funny looks when I took roll and I just thought they didn't like me or something.  I'm mostly impressed with how long they kept up the charade...almost three full weeks.  I still get their names mixed up to this day!  lol

I guess the moral here is about perspective.  Sure, I could have looked at all the pranks as a bad thing, got upset about it, and acted cranky.  But that doesn't sound like much fun.  I was annoyed about the name thing, but looking back those pranks are fond memories of mine.  Those boys gave me such a hard time in class.  I remember talking to one of them after they graduated and he said, "we loved your class."  I was like, "What! but you guys were always giving me a hard time."  And he said, "yeah cause we like you."  Go figure - boys!  There's a saying, it's a bit contrite but very true:  "Life is 5% what happens to you and 95% how you react to it."

My choir kids 1st yr of teaching (junior high and high school) 1999-2000