Imitating the Teacher

I wear pens in my hair. And pencils. As a teacher who can't wear pants with proper pockets (mostly due to fashion than anything else) this is the most logical and handy place to put them.

Sometimes I don't realize the unintended consequence of this. Blobfish Lover, for example put all her markers in her braid one day and I didn't realize that she was doing this because of me until long after I'd told her to take them out. (I think my principal was visiting that day. Paying attention to a lot of things was hard.)

Another student shoved all her colored pencils through her headband for crazy hair day. (It was one of those crocheted headbands with lots of natural holes. It was fine.)

When we switched for science one of the boys in the other class kept putting a pencil on his head. His hair is barely long enough to comb let enough hold a pencil. Somehow he managed to balance it between his short hairs and head and walked slowly so that it wouldn't fall out.

"Isaiah, what are you doing?" I asked him when he came up to the front of the room to do something. "Take that off of your head."

"Awww. I was trying to be like you."

Oh. Of course he was. I smiled. Then I laughed. I guess I shouldn't laugh when students say and do things like that. I did anyway.

Someone once told me that if I ever asked my students to do an impression of me, that they'd be able to do it really, really well, glaring flaws and all. It makes me wonder what things I need to do better or which things they are picking up on that I really need to do differently.