I have a collection of elaborate and contrived facial expressions I use in my classroom which are designed to express my displeasure... while at the same time save my vocal cords from a fate worse than Christopher Walken.
Firstly, there’s the refined, “Why are you using your Smiggles scissors to cut the Smiggle’s eraser your mother paid an outrageous amount for into twenty pieces?” look.
Every second day, it seems to be the “Get that poor, wretched grasshopper/cricket/moth you found on the oval and is currently imprisoned in your grass-filled lunch box out of the room as it’s distracting every other child in the class” face.
There’s also the subtle but effective, “Please don’t 'pick your nose/swing dangerously on your chair/poke the Smiggles pencil in your ear' when I’m reading the class a story. I can still see you because I know how to read using eye contact” look.
Sometimes I pull the “I wish you’d stop loudly calling out ‘Bugger!’ every time you break the lead in your pencil. I know you probably picked it up from Mum but it’s not really appropriate” look.
Occasionally I stand staring at the back wall with my quietly threatening, “You guys don’t know it but I REALLY hate standing in the frickin hot sun at Thursday afternoon sport and if you don’t shut the hell up we’ll all be sitting in the classroom when Thursday comes around learning about 3D shapes, so go ahead make my day” look.
And very, very rarely I give the psycho-killer look.
The evil countenance where my eyes roll back in my head as if to say, “I just gave an explicit instruction, I role played it, I wrote it on the board, I had you repeat it twice, I played Hangman to reinforce it, I wrote a song about it and sang and danced it, I designed a board game about it and hung up bunting and made a cake to celebrate it… so, if you are standing here with that cute confused look on your face asking me ‘what are we supposed to be doing Mrs Poinker?’ you’d best ask someone else in the classroom if you ever want to see your mother again.”
This is why Botox injections should be tax deductible for teachers.
This is why Botox injections should be tax deductible for teachers.
