Meph(istopheles) on the Shelf

The "elf on the shelf" phenomenon both fascinates me and unsettles me.  Saturday, my best friend and I were in Target, and there was a huge end-cap display of the elves and all their accouterments.  There's even a "pet" for the elf and all kinds of clothing and other things to suck money right out of the wallets of well-meaning parents.  It's a whole industry, and apparently a growing one.

I have one of the original shelf-sitter dolls from the 1960s.  I got it on eBay a long time ago.  Mine is no elf, though.  Mine is a red-pointed-tail, horn- wearing devil.  He has pointed ears and a wicked little winking grin.  He is my Mephistopheles.

I used to put him out every year when we studied Doctor Faustus.  He sat safely on my shelf until the work was done; then it was time for him to go back into storage for another year.  For the last two years, though, he's stayed in my locking cabinet.  I've simply been too tired or too rushed to get him out.

This year, after seeing the shelf-elves and hearing one of my colleagues talk about using one of them in her classroom, I felt inspired.  I braved the Fibber McGee's closet that is my locking cabinet and unearthed him.  Then I tucked Meph into the leaves of my giant rubber plant and let him wait.  When the class noticed him, I told him we would have a shelf Meph instead.  He is really much more my style than a simpering elf.  They loved it.

This afternoon, after the last of my students were gone, he migrated to a new spot in the room.  I reckon I can find great amusement in keeping this up until the end of the semester.  Hopefully, the students will find it amusing, too.

The things we do at semester's end.....

The $15 Chair

As a high school teacher, I've never really thought about having furniture in my classroom.  However, when we renovated the English wing breakroom, I started thinking about how nice it would be to have a small wingback chair to sit in whenever I am evaluating presentations and for visitors to sit in when they come to my class for observations.

So the hunt was on.

For a town with a large number of thrift shops, it was impossible to find a wingback chair here.  Either they were already sold and waiting on pickup to go to their new homes or they were priced way beyond my low-end teacher budget. 

Finally, my best friend and I went to West Point for the Prairie Arts festival, an annual trip for us.  We always stop at this mega-awesome thrift shop there, and I found this chair.  It and several other pieces of vintage furniture were tucked behind some much glossier and slicker-looking new stuff, but when I saw its distinctive silhouette rising above the low backs of the faux leather couches, I made a bee-line for it. 

When I turned the tag over, I had a moment of true teacher joy:  $14.99.  I lifted it up right there and carried it up to the checkout lest some other predatory educator (or grad student) be looking for the same kind of bargain. 

It's not pretty, but man alive, it's awesome to sit down in from time to time.  It has made the times when my students come up and use my document camera or present my favorite lesson moments.  :)

My "New"spaper Wall

Whiteboard/wall space is extremely limited in my classroom because of all the lovely windows I have, so I have to try to find "workarounds."  I use a small whiteboard underneath my document camera whenever I need to write things during class, and I portion out my space carefully on the big boards that do hang on my wall. 

Newspaper needed more space, though, so I went back to Lowe's and got one more sheet of markerboard wainscotting.  After a theatrical farce trying to get it cut, I brought it back to school today, wrapped the raw edges in black duct tape with little skulls (or, as I think of them, baby Yorricks), and hung them on the front of my locking metal cabinet with command strips.

(Just a sidenote about command strips.  My whole teaching universe would collapse, literally and physically, if it weren't for command.  Thank you, 3M people, for an awesome product.)

I am pretty pleased with the result.  The staff has moved right in, and I think we will be more organized.  Not bad for $10 and a few minutes spent playing with duct tape.....

Shakespeare Is Ready

This bust of Shakespeare was given to me by a wonderfully sweet class many years ago.  It is one of my most prized possessions, one of those things I'd grab if I had to run out of building in case of disaster or fire.  I dress him up seasonally.  Right now, he's wearing the hat I bought at the Folger Shakespeare Library this summer and my Reader badge from my time there during the Summer Academy.  In the words of Muddy Waters, Shakespeare is as "ready as anybody can be."