It's Not Greek To Me

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not a musical.

I'm sorry. What I MEANT to say was, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not amused. As in, not ha-ha-ing at the unintentional antics of her students.

Not only is Mrs. Hillbilly Mom not a musical, nor amused, but she is also not a tragedy. Therefore, she has even less need for the burgeoning trend in her classroom toward the GREEK CHORUS.

I'm sure you are all familiar with the Greek chorus. You know, the background busybodies who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action. Yeah. That Greek chorus. My personal Greek chorus is eclectic. You would not even suspect that my classroom harbored a Greek chorus until they reared their mouthy heads. No uniforms. No robes. No masks. No standing together in the background. Yet each class period, the Greek chorus bides its time. Perhaps a performance might go a little like this:

"...and there will be no hand-held games, and no earphones. [Heh, heh, I almost typed EARPLUGS, a Freudian slip if there ever was one, because I, myself, desire earplugs, even though it would prevent many a timely blog post.] "They are not allowed at school, and are certainly not allowed in my classroom. If I see them, I will take them. You will have to go to the office to ask to get them back."

"But Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, she didn't have them yesterday."
"Didn't have them."
"HE was playing the game. Not her."
"SHE worked all hour. All the way up to the bell. She didn't play with it once."

"I remember yesterday. Who says I am speaking to HER? But since you brought it up, even though I didn't ask and it's not your concern, let's make sure we have the facts straight. She did not work all hour until the bell. She asked to finish a task in another classroom, and left as soon as she turned in her paper. Before she left, she had loaned her handheld game to HIM, and HE was playing on it when I caught him and told him to put it away. Then HE gave it back to HER. I should have taken it away from him, and saved myself this discussion."

"But Mrs. Hillbilly Mom! She didn't have in earphones."
"She never wears earphones."
"Never does."
"She doesn't listen to them in here."

"Did I say that SHE was the one using earphones? No. I made a general statement to the class. It should have taken twenty seconds. Stop jumping to conclusions and making people look guilty. Now I know who to watch. They can thank you after class."

See? Even though I made that announcement every hour, somebody had to jump in and declare innocence for the guilty. Stick their noses in to snort their two cents. A regular Greek chorus. Like I couldn't keep the action straight in my own head.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. Not only a teacher, but a student. A student of human behavior.