My Mom Phil

My mom is a high school history teacher. Depending on the semester, she generally teaches AP or regular American History, World History or Contemporary Issues. This semester she has a student teacher. I love it when my mom calls to tell me what the student teacher has been up to. I don't know where she went to college or why she thinks she is qualified to teach American History.

First, she asked my mom, "What was the Cold War again?"
Then a few days later, after my mom had to tell her it was the Civil War that Reconstruction followed, she told my mom her plan to explain Reconstruction. "I'll just tell them if they want to know what the South looked like after the Civil War, to just look at the wall over there." After my mom asked her what in the world she was talking about, she replied that, well, that wall is pretty blank.

My mom is obviously a little worried about the fact that her student teacher wants to make the students look at a blank wall and other things that don't make sense. And while my mom appreciates the time she puts into detail and to coming up with creative ideas, we both agree that her time would be better spent actually learning the information she is going to teach instead of on her upcoming class lecture project: "Reconstruction: Extreme Home Makeover of the South."

I wish I had been in my mom's history class. She is one smart cookie and is funny to boot. Her students call her Phil instead of Ms. Phillips. And she called one of her former students by her street name "Snake."

When I was at home for Christmas, I saw one of her student's school pictures on the fridge and I asked who it was. She said it was one of her aides who sometimes babysits my little brother. A few weeks later, she called me one day at work during her planning period. I heard someone in the background come in and say to my mom, "You're talking too loud." I asked her who had said that and she replied, "Just a student. Oh, you know that girl whose picture you were asking about." Then I heard her turn to the girl who had been standing there the whole time listening and tell her that I had said, "Oh, the ugly one?" I started cracking up and she told the girl she was just kidding.

Also, who else has a picture of John Wayne in their American History classroom? I never did.

A couple of years ago, she sent copies of her American History Final as well as her Constitution test for my roommates, hometeachers and me. It turned into a little competition and was a lot of fun.

Despite the fact that I really liked my high school American History teacher Mrs. Little (she still emails me sometimes), I think it would have been a blast to have witnessed the antics that I'm sure go down in my mom's classroom.