Lies I Tell My Students

Honesty is the best policy, right?

Wrong. If you work with children, you tell them whatever it takes to get through the day.

#1: "The principal is coming to watch YOU learn."

What I'm Really Saying: "She's here to watch me teach, so you'd better not act up."
Does it work? ...eh.

#2: "Yes, I'm grading this."

What I'm Really Saying: "Like I have time to grade every single little scrap of paper that you write on over the course of a school day. Do your work anyway."

#3: "We had a rough start to our day, but you did a great job of turning it around, so I'm going to give you back the recess you lost."

What I'm Really Saying: "It's a really nice day and I want to be outside. So even though you were horrible this morning, we're having recess."

#4: "I'm not going to repeat these instructions. Listen carefully so you will know what to do."

What I'm really saying: "I'm going to say these directions six times, but you still aren't going to listen to them, and then you're going to call across the room when I'm working with a small group that you don't know what to do. And then I'm going to lose it."

#5: "I don't listen to tattles."

What I'm Really Saying: "I'll listen to your tattle, because one time you told me that so-and-so said the S-word, and that S-word turned out to be 'stupid,' and I need a funny story to tell at happy hour later."

**If you know me at all, you know that this is all highly satirical. And yet, I feel obligated to say so because some people take things WAY too seriously. To those people, I say:

Alternate title for this post: Jess Goes Overboard with Teacher Memes.