Case of the Mondays

Sometimes on Mondays I look around the room after I ask a question and just look at blank stares.

Bueller?

Bueller?

It is like an abyss of confusion. Or just a bunch of students who are not ready to be at school yet. This is usually my chatty crew. They love answering questions and having discussions. Today was not that day, well at least at first. Luckily they did start to get a little bit more involved as the day went on, but it was like pulling teeth to start. Then the head scratching really started. I had one of my students turn in two assignments. As they were doing their morning work, I started checking in their assignments. I noticed that this student spelled the last part of this name with an -er. I have always spelled it with an -or. I was so confused. I took a glance at the name tag, -or. I looked at him with a major expression of confusion on my face, and asked him if I had been spelling it wrong this whole time. Then he returned the facial expression that I had just given him. It is like I just asked him to explain the theory of relativity. Nope. Just simply asked him to spell his name. Next, a look of horror approached his face. He said “I think it is -er…wait let me write it down.” Unfortunately, that didn’t help either. He was stumped. He did end up coming up to me a half hour later and said, “Mr. McTeague, it is -or.” Glad that we got that cleared up.

Add in snow and ice coming down today and you have yourself a solid case of the Mondays.