It occurs to me that before I do anything else, I should explain the title.

Years ago, I was watching Roseanne Barr’s stand up where she introduced herself as a “Domestic Goddess” instead of a “House Wife”. I found this charming and hilarious. Fast forward several years to my second year of teaching.

It is not uncommon for students in my community to drop the surname of their teachers and simply call them “Miss” or “Mister”. Many teachers object to this, but it is very difficult to force them to use surnames. In my second year of teaching, I decided to combat this with humor.

That year, and every year after, I have introduced myself as follows: “My name is Mrs. Milan. Please do not call me “Miss” – I have been married far too long to be a miss and I am neither a hit nor a miss. You only have to learn 8 names each year and I have to learn nearly 200. So if I can learn yours, you should be able to learn mine. If ‘Mrs. Milan’ is too difficult, you may shorten it to just ‘Milan’ or I’ll answer to ‘Classroom Goddess’, which ever you prefer.”

It always receives a chuckle and in my third year of teaching, one of my students actually took to calling me ‘Goddess’. Then my children – whom I refer to as ‘kidlets’ – embraced the joke and would say things like ‘my mom is a goddess’, even going so far as to as to talk me into using it for my Starbucks name! Since then, it has become a running joke in my classroom. Whenever a student asks me how I know something, I smile and say “Because I’m a goddess.” And students have said “Because she is a goddess!” to other students.

And that is how “Classroom Goddess” has become a part of my identity and the title of this site.