(This is Ryan) - My students in my 10th grade class generously provided a fish for my classroom. She's a betta fish and apparently quite easy to take care of. After countless carnival goldfish dying within hours, her lifespan has been increasingly a miraculous event in my life. According to her myspace that the students (yup, same ones) have made on her behalf, she has led quite the adventerous life. The students named her Bafunkah because they thought it sounded good with Folken. If you say it out loud, I think you'd agree. If you'd like more information on Bafunkah, you can find it here. For those less inclined, here's an excerpt:
Greetings. I am Bafunkah Folken. I began life as an egg in a deep mud hole in Malaysia. At the age of 12 I began an apprenticeship under a blacksmith by the name of Charles Witherton. Charles died of tubercerlosis two years later and left me his whole estate. Devestated by his death, I vowed to continue in his trade. About two months after Charle's death, I forgot my vow, sold the shop, and invested all I had in Enron stock.
It goes on for a while and along the left side there's little tidbits about who she is, including her occupation - swimmer, her major in college - aquatics, and her ethnicity which turns out to be a surprise if you take a close look at the picture.
On a side note, one of the questions that kind of bugs a teacher is the question, "I was gone yesterday, did I miss anything?" The obvious answer, of course, is, "Yes." Every class should be assumed to be full of Bible-ishousness and life changing lecture and discussion - right?
3 years ago
4 comments:
Oh my goodness! That is the funniest myspace I have ever seen in my life! These kind of things make me miss teaching. . . for about five minutes:-) You sound like you have some pretty bright and creative students - am I correct in guessing that you have to give them lots of work to keep them challenged? I know this kind of class, I had one once! Listen to me on this one. . . no matter they say about the amount of work, the myspace site is obvious proof that it can't be too much. . . come on, if it were too much how would they have time to open a myspace account for your fish?
Ryan, thanks for sharing. I can't wait to go home and see the site. We are blocked from myspace here at work. As silly as the whole Bafunkah site may be, it's a real testament of how much they care about you as a teacher.
Question: None of your students are aware of this blog site, right? I recall being over your house for Super Bowl and you getting a couple of calls with giggling and a hang up, and you thinking it might be one of your students. Yep, those students really think a lot about you to start a website for your fish and call you on the weekends. :)
Ryan, as a teacher myself, I can feel your "pain" in regards to your students questions. The other question that I get far too often: "Mr. Stamberg, are we doing anything today in class?"
How do they expect me to answer? "No, of course not. I would never interupt your socializing time with meaningless information." :) Of course, I'm sure neither one of us ever asked similar questions.... ;)
Oh my goodness! That's the funniest thing that I've seen today. Sounds like some of your students are a trip!
Post a Comment