hey miss.

my students call me miss.

and it’s not just me.  they call other teachers miss or mister (for female and male teachers, respectively).

[side note: this never happened when i went to school.  we called teachers by mrs. so-and-so, or by just their last name, or some abbreviation thereof, if they were a cool teacher and/or had an awesome name.  i believe we called my favorite teacher mcscruff the crime dog, but that’s an entirely other story.  but, miss?  mister?  seriously?  anyone have this in their schools?]

i called them on this awhile back, for two reasons.  one, when i hear “miss”, it makes me think they don’t know my name, and in my classroom, everybody knows everybody’s name.  it’s a rule.  second, and more annoyingly, it makes me feel like i’m a waitress.

and if i am, then they seriously better start tipping me better.

so, i kept insisting they call me by my name, or ms. w for short.  one of my more vocal students finally challenged me back.  he advised that once they get to know you, then it’s just what they call their teachers.  it’s not a bad thing, it’s just how it is.

i demurred.

i now answer to miss.

so, why am i telling you this?

i had to create a temporary blog for my class for their research papers, because i needed a central repository for all of the guidelines, models and handouts that will accompany this next unit.   also?  i like blogs, and thought it would be fun.

the unfortunate part, though, is to make it easy, i just created it here on wordpress so i could quickly log on to all of my blogs, which at this point number still in the low single digits (3).  well, actually, that’s not the unfortunate part, the unfortunate part is that my profile’s signature appears the same on each blog.

and i couldn’t really have the students be reading the postings on their class blog coming from “sara, darling” which has been my signature for a really, really long time.

so, for the next few weeks, you’ll see me writing to you, dear readers, from the desk of “ms. w”.

i’m really not used to it, but in about 2 months, i’ll be called “mrs. d”, and that REALLY weirds me out.

but i’m not thinking about that.  i’m wondering how long it will be before i stop turning my head when my students, usually beckoning a classmate) call out “sara!” in my class.  good times.