6 Blueprint
FEATURES
March 11, 2016 March 11, 2016
FEATURES
Blueprint 7
Teacher feature: students recognize that teachers are people too “Mean Girls” said it best: “I love seeing teachers outside of school. It’s like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs.” This is a very accurate representation of how students feel because they can’t imagine teachers’ lives outside of the typical school atmosphere. However, teachers do, in fact, have lives outside of school, and some are much more interesting than students would expect.
Teachers are also capable of falling in love and having relationships They have a sense of humor By Michelle Hroma, Copy Editor
They have lunch cliques By Michaela Burton, Social Media Director Cliques are found everywhere you go -- with students, adults and even teachers. Although students never see how teachers act outside of school, they do normal things and hang out with friends just like students do. Social studies teacher Laura Rodey shares her personal experience with teacher cliques. “There are certain teachers that I spend more time with than others. For teachers, it is often also influenced by which periods you have off together,” Rodey said. Having the same period off isn’t the only reason why teachers tend to form cliques. “I think it’s human nature to gravitate towards certain people because you share interests and/ or your personalities click,” Rodey
said. Math teacher Thomas Lubbers also shares his view on why teachers form these bonds. “In my opinion, cliques are formed for one or two reasons (sometimes both). Number one: convenience and number two: those people are genuinely fun to be around,” Lubbers said. “We love going to lunch together a few times a week and hanging out after school as much as possible,” Lubbers said. Sounds like student and teacher cliques aren’t so different after all. “There is a reason why we ended up in education. We love the atmosphere, the routine and the ability to interact with our colleagues and friends,” Lubbers said. Contact Michaela at mbur1533@csd99.org
Burtons “We met in high school (Hinsdale South) and went to NIU together. Then, Mrs. Burton got a Job at Willowbrook High School, and I started here at DGS. After taking some time off to raise our kids, she was hired here at South. Working together is no big deal. We rarely see each other and are in two different departments,” David Burton physical education teacher said.
Painters
Fardys
“It was just by chance. I love being able to share my day with her, and she knows what and who I am talking about. It brings us closer together since we can relate to each other’s good and bad days at work. We’ve been able to teach some common classes together, be club sponsor and attend Snowball together too. We actually don’t see each other during the day too much, so it’s not too overwhelming having our work and personal life overlap so much,” Jocelyn Painter math teacher said.
“We met in school in 2005 -- in the copy room. The first time we talked was at a teacher outing to a Cubs game at the end of the year. Other teachers ‘arranged’ the conversation because they thought we would make a good couple. We kept it a secret from students, but not really from teachers. The principal at the time randomly sat at the table next to us when we were on one of our first dates, so keeping it a secret wasn’t really much of an option,” Robyn Fardy social studies teacher said.
Every high school student has experienced the dreaded feeling of being completely clueless on a test. Some students may choose to leave the question blank, but other students choose to be more creative with their answers. While a handful of teachers may be offended by these absurd responses, several DGS teachers are entertained by some of the responses they’ve received. Spanish teacher Enrique Garcia explains how teachers view these funny answers. “Sometimes they’ll hand in homework and there will be answers like, ‘Go Cubs go!’ or ‘School sucks!’ and as a teacher you have to see the humor in all of this too. So I often say, go Cubs go, just to see how they’ll react. I think you can only really react with a sense of humor, and you can’t get bent out of shape,” Garcia said. In some cases, the students’ answers are too funny to forget. Social studies teacher Jim Chochole recalls some memorable answers he’s received in his 14 years of teaching. “In Global Connections we were talking about philosophes and the Enlightenment, and the question was who discovered the molecules of oxygen, and the answer was Joseph Priestley, and someone raised their hand and said, ‘isn’t that supposed to be Elvis Priestley?’” Chochole said. Garcia also remembers some answers he’s received from students that have particularly stuck out.
“[I received a scantron from] a student, who already knew he was going to fail, and was done within seconds. He handed it to me, and he had outlined 2000, since it was the year he was supposed to graduate, but since he knew he wasn’t going to pass, then on the backside, he’d outlined 2001, the year he’d probably be graduating in. I just looked at him and laughed,” Garcia said. Little do students know that some teachers are so amused by these answers that they’ve kept some of these for a test fails scrapbook. English teacher Glenn Spitler discusses the English Department’s compilation of funny student answers. “I’ve shown a few of them to my students…we have a book. We’ve had a tradition for a while [we have] outtakes and then we put them in a book,” Spitler said. Spanish teacher Enrique Garcia explains how teachers often respond to these outlandish test responses. Many teachers such as Spitler and Chochole get a laugh out of these responses, but they tend to add a little spice to the teachers jobs here at DGS. “You can either cry or laugh, and we choose to laugh,” Spitler said. Contact Michelle at mhro1998@csd99.org
Teachers get embarrassed just as much as students do By Kirsten Gard, Editor-in-Chief Online
Photos by Clarissa Moreno (Above) A group of students enjoy lunch with their “cliques” (Below) the physical education teachers eat lunch with their group of friends just like students do.
Everyone is bound to have a few embarrassing moments -- it is part of being human. For the teachers of DGS, this statement remains true. While one of these embarrassing teacher moments happened away from the eyes of curious students, the other two were out in the open for all the students to witness. Fine arts teacher Katherine O’Truk is in her second year teaching at DGS; before she began teaching here, she was an art teacher at Deerfield High School. Her most embarrassing moment was between her and another staff member. “When I was working at Deerfield High School, I was hanging art in the hallway, and the display case was taller than I was, and I didn’t have a stool,” O’Truk said. “I was reaching up really high to try and pin the work, and an older teacher came by and said, ‘Oh sweetie! You should ask your teacher for help. That’s so high.’ I didn’t know what to do, so I just said ‘OK, thank you!’” English teacher Nathaniel Haywood also had an embarrassing moment at school; however, his was in front of his entire class and video taped and was viewed countless times by his students. “The most memorable one would be last year when I foolishly promised [my AP Language and Composition]
Photo by Kirsten Gard Haywood kneels over a stool eating his bright, yelllow smash cake from his first period AP Language class.
class that I would eat a smash cake -- a cake usually bought for infants to smash and eat -- if the class brought one in [along] with a tarp to safeguard the ground. I thought there was no way that anyone would fork over the cash to pay for the cake or remember to bring in a tarp, so I figured I was safe,” Haywood said. “Of course, someone did pay for the cake, and the tarp was brought. So I ended up covered in cake, my face smeared in frosting, and a video of me smashing into it circulating the school. That was the pinnacle for me.” Choir teacher Joy Belt also had an embarrassing moment in front of students captured on film, since rehearsals for musicals are taped. It is currently stored on the choir blooper reel. “Last year in the spring musical rehearsal, I was dancing the dance on stage. I tripped and just about fell, and while I was almost falling, I...maybe said some not nice words, which just made it more embarrassing,” Belt said. “It was one of those moments that I was not very proud of, but I can laugh at myself about it. Laughter is the best medicine, it’s best just to laugh at yourself when you make a mistake, and I do that very well.”
Photos by Michelle Hroma Some examples of clever answers teachers have gotten on tests when students were obviously clueless, but still weren’t willing to leave a question blank.
Contact Kirsten at kgar3084@csd99.org
Marriage quotes compiled by Michaela Burton, Hannah Maes, and Grace Chaplin