Free Learn Me Gooder by John Pearson

snatched the paper off of her desk and thrown it away, because I could totally imagine Shelly tearfully asking, “Miss Woodson, why? Why do you hate love?”
    I finally convinced her to stop writing notes and to pay attention in class – at least, her version of paying attention.
    At any rate, I’ll probably be getting a very lovely note come Monday morning along the lines of, “You’re the best, Miss Woodson!!”
Talk to you later,

Matt Skewlin

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009

 
To: Fred Bommerson
     
From: Jack Woodson
     
Subject: Commercial success
     
     
Hey bud,
     
    Good to have you back in Dallas, with most of your sanity intact after a week with Larry. I know how exhausted you must be after spending most of yesterday catching up on paperwork, build statuses, team updates, and the like. Yet somehow you found the time to tell everyone about that last email.
    They all sent me emails calling me Miss or Ms. Except Winter, who always has to top everyone. His email was addressed to Mademoiselle Woodson. And they say engineers never have an original thought.
    In addition to those emails, guess what I received yesterday? If you said an autographed picture of veteran character actor Robert Loggia, you’re not far off. I got (pause for dramatic effect) A CARD FROM SHELLY!!
    Who could possibly have seen that one coming?
    It said, “Dear Msr Woodsman, You are the best techer ever! Love, Shelly.”
    I’m willing to overlook the misspelling of my name, since she does verbally say Woodson. So I won’t need to call her “Barry” in return.
    I think “Msr” is just a misspelling as well and doesn’t mean that she’s decided to start addressing me as Monsignor. She still looks at me oddly when I ask her to call me “Mister,” but she’s not the only one who is still trying to figure me out. I’ve been with my kids for about two months now, and it’s amazing how the two classes behave as completely separate microcosms. One group seems to really “get” me, while the other seems to wonder what planet I’m from.
    This morning, we were going over a word problem that mentioned someone’s garden. I knew that Mrs. Bird had just finished reading a story with the children called “Ugly Vegetables,” so after reading the word problem, I said, “Tim’s garden is 5 feet wide. Oh, maybe Tim is planting some UGLY VEGETABLES!”
    Dead silence. I looked out into a sea of blank faces, as a tumbleweed slowly drifted across the room. I tapped on the end of my overhead marker and spoke into it – “Is this thing on?”
    After lunch, with my second class, I tried the exact same bit. Maybe it’s just the personalities of the different kids, maybe I improved the timing in my comedy act, or maybe the cafeteria pizza pockets had nitrous oxide in them, but the results were decidedly different.
    “Tim’s garden is 5 feet wide. Oh, hey, I’ll bet Tim is planting some UGLY VEGETABLES!”
    The room exploded into laughter and applause like Showtime at the Apollo. Kids were waving towels in circles around their heads, shouting “WOO WOO!” and throwing buckets of confetti at each other.
    Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
    They may not all be hanging on every word I say just yet, but they certainly are influenced by what they see on television. Mrs. Bird told us a story over lunch today about a response she got from Jacob during her social studies lesson. She’s been discussing the court system with the class and going over the roles and functions of judges, juries, lawyers, etc. Today she asked, “Who could you go to if you needed help in solving a legal problem?”
    Jacob immediately raised his hand and shouted out, “James Handler, The Dallas Sledgehammer!”
    Clearly, Handler’s local commercials – “My neighbor’s dog peed on my mailbox, and James Handler got me $450,000!!” – have made an impression on young Jacob, among others.
    This is not the first advertising campaign that has had an effect in