How to Charm Your Teachers

As I've stated before, I'm currently writing a novel, which is scary and fun and chaotic. But mainly fun. Sharing writing is a nerve-wracking endeavor but, just like writing itself, feels so good after the coffee drinking-esque nervousness subsides. So here is a small snippet of chapter seven in my novel which is, as of now, still untitled. Enjoy. Or not. No pressure.

7. How To Charm You Teachers

I don’t know if I’m like, the Hermione Granger of my school or something, but all of my teachers adore me.* Like this morning, I was walking in to get some coffee from Dunkin Donuts and I saw my old tenth grade English teacher, Mr. Smyrna. If I hadn’t seen him, I would’ve made my way to work and sat through another boring day, listlessly checking in books. But when you’ve charmed a teacher and they see you in a coffee shop a year later, you end up staying behind half an hour and chatting with this humorous, unfairly handsome man.
There are a few pointers that I’d like to share with you to get to this point.

• Read books. Lots of them and especially the ones from the classic section. Teachers dig it when their students are lounging during class reading a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Just make sure you've got a twentieth century American classic in hand, otherwise the lounging part is counterproductive.
• Be a respectful, studious wallflower. This one is pretty obvious, I mean, what teacher wants their students drawing caricatures of them and talking about last night’s episode of Jersey Shore in class?
• Even though you want to be respectful and studious and whatnot, you have to learn to walk that fine line between being coquettish and cheeky and being Daniel Tosh. You’ll learn as you go.
• Stay a little while after class and talk to your teacher. It could be a question about the assignment, a remark about how amazing their new haircut looks (although you should use this one sparingly, as they know how to spot out empty compliments which this one mostly likely will be), or a conversation about how wonderful Roger Ebert’s tweets are. Once you engage with your teacher, they’ll know you’re a sweet and saucy intellectual with fine taste that enjoys talking to elders.**
• Finally, be me. It’s that simple. This will one hundred percent guarantee you to win the heart of every teacher you meet. Every. One.

*With the exception of my French teacher. What can I say? French is hard, and she’s an angsty teacher that writes poetry in a notebook that's bigger than her head. And also my freshman history teacher, the one that wore Winne the Pooh sweaters-What do you mean Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source of information?!

**What? This isn’t you? Now would be a great time to fake it if you want that 4.0 GPA, honey.