- The mother of a child who I do not have in class
set up a parent-teacher conference
so she could meet me to ask me on a date.
(upbeat music)
- This was about four or five years into my teaching career.
And thus far, I'd only been teaching fourth grade
but the school I was at
had an opening for the kindergarten teacher position.
If we know anything about kindergarteners,
everything is so new and wonderful and exciting to them.
Anything from their lunch that day, to the bird they see,
all the way to farting or as my class called it, tooting.
So the way I would do my mornings in my kindergarten class,
is I would have our morning meeting,
we'd go over our ABC's, today's date, then numbers
all that good stuff, and end it
up with a nice morning reading time.
They would always sit on this huge,
colorful rug in front of me.
And they sat in their assigned seats
and every now and then, you know,
something would happen where one of them would fart
and everyone would like smile at each other.
Well this day, I was just so into my reading
and I was so excited and into my book,
as I'm turning the page, I lean a little bit and I,
yes, Miss Stanley, farts.
And it's a pretty big part too.
It's nothing small that can just be covered up.
Right, so immediately when it happens,
I know it's so loud that the kids hear it too.
And I immediately think, oh, we've gotta cover this up.
So I said, who did that, who farted?
Just to save myself.
And all the kids kind of look at each other
and they start pointing at each other, you know,
and they're like, no, I didn't do it, I didn't do it.
And so I just said, so remember that if you have something
whenever you need to fart, just go over in the corner
so we don't have to deal with the smell or the sound of it.
And one of the kids raises his hand and he says, yeah,
Miss. Stanley, that's a great idea.
I think you should follow that rule too.
The whole thing in my mind
to get my students to not know that that was me
who farted completely crumbled.
I think a few of them realized it was me,
especially the student who said that
but some of them still, you know,
to this day are probably like, I wonder who that was?
Needless to say, pretty embarrassing.
- I teach first graders.
And just like when I was in first grade,
my favorite part of the day would be recess.
It's just one of those times of day
that everyone looks forward to.
I look forward to it of course,
because it is my break time, my time to rest, to relax.
Of course, when we go outside though
the students always challenge me to a race.
Some of the students in my class are saying,
Miss. Brown, Miss. Brown let's race,
let me beat you in this race.
My response every day is, no, I'm tired.
Go play with your friends.
I would even have on my dress shoes
or I just wasn't in the mood.
Well, this particular day, I had on old tennis shoes.
I was in a great mood.
This time when they asked me to a race,
I mistakenly said yes, I accepted the challenge.
I was ready to go.
So we had a student come over to say the ready set, go.
They wanted it to be as fair as possible.
Well, I wasn't nervous
because my legs are longer than theirs.
I played tennis before.
I knew that I still had some gumption in me.
Well, no, we start the race.
The student says, ready, set, go.
We start running, we start running.
I have forgot that the reason I wore
my old tennis shoes that day
is because it had been raining a lot
for the past week and a half.
So I'm racing, I'm running, of course I'm ahead.
I'm looking back, making sure that they're good.
As I'm looking back, I turn to the side,
realize that I'm going straight forward into a mud pile.
The students have kind of veered off from it.
I fall right dab in the middle of it.
The mud is everywhere, the students run over.
They're like, are you okay, are you okay?
Of course, I'm looking over.
There's mud all over me, all over my clothes.
It was just one of those moments
where you just wish that everything would stop
and you could just turn back time.
If I had said, no, I got up dusted myself off, showed them
you know, no matter what happens, you keep it moving.
Keep pushing forward, it'll all be okay.
But I did not race for the rest of that year.
- Let me start off by saying, I am a very good teacher.
So on top of being named one of the most
influential educators in America,
I was also named one of the 25 fittest celebrities
in the world by Men's Fitness magazine, which I'm not.
And I was also named the sexiest teacher alive
by People Magazine.
As you can imagine,
those titles have led to some uncomfortable moments.
So this one day, I had a parent teacher conference.
Usually get a letter in your mailbox that tells you
you have a parent teacher conference
and this is the parent and this is the child.
So I went and signed in in the morning as I always do.
I looked, I got this note.
I didn't recognize the parent's name
but for the most part, sometimes obviously
our students have different last names
than their parents, so that's fine.
I also didn't recognize the student's name.
And in fairness, it was probably the third week of school.
So I kind of look at it as, okay,
well, I mean I obviously have this student,
maybe he goes by a different name.
Maybe I know him by a nickname.
So that's why I didn't recognize his name.
So I didn't think anything of it.
Time comes for my conference.
I go into guidance where we have them.
I sit down, I meet the mother and we're talking,
she's asked me questions.
She's like, oh Mr. Ferroni, you know,
heard so many great things about you.
And I'm like, that's great.
It felt like more like she was interviewing me
than it was a parent-teacher conference.
So I said, I'm like, Mrs. so-and-so
I'm like, just so you know, I'm like,
I'm sorry to apologize
but I don't recognize your son's name.
What class does he have me?
Like what period class is he in of mine?
And that's when she said very simply,
oh you don't have my son in class.
You don't have him, he's a junior here
but he has a different teacher.
And I was like, well then why did you wanna meet with me?
She's like, I just wanted to meet you.
She's like, I heard so many things about you.
I just actually just wanted to meet Mr. Ferroni.
She was like, I was curious, are you single?
And I was at the time.
And she's like, well, if you want,
I would love to either go have drinks with you
or go out to dinner.
She's like, well, here's my number if you change your mind.
So she actually gave me her number,
the mother of a child who I do not have in class
set up a parent-teacher conference
so she could meet me to ask me on a date.
And again, as flattering as it was, it was prep period.
I just thought it was so inappropriate
and so awkward to do it during that time period,
prep periods are valuable.