I was inspired by http://shitmystudentssay.tumblr.com/ to write a post of hilarious, rude, and ridiculous things said by the students at my school. To provide some context, these are 5th graders also at an urban school where the majority of the student body is below the poverty level. My class is all Hispanic, and their tenuous grasp of English spices up daily conversation even more. Enjoy!
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One of my student’s commentary of today’s Culture Fair: “Man, this is lamer than watching you teach!”
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We’re doing a fundraiser at school to collect pennies for cancer patients, and the kids each have their own little cardboard box to put their pennies in. From one of my students, “Mrs A, can I cut some hair off and put it in here so they can make a wig?”
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One of my students had just gotten a haircut and was embarrassed, so he wore his hood on all day. Another kid in the class explained the behavior by saying that “he has cancer.”
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As you might’ve noticed, the kids have a real penchant for making tactless cancer jokes. If I start drawing a stick figure, I have to endure shouts of “He has cancer!” until I dutifully color in hair.
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On a sticky note: “Miss do I look Mexican? From Alejando.”
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Student: “Are you Mexican?”
Me: No, I’m not.
Student: WHAT? You’re not even a little bit Mexican?
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Student: Are you Catholic?
Me: No, I’m just a regular Christian,
Student: YOU’RE NOT A CATHOLIC?
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We’re in the middle of working on Math and my student who never speaks English suddenly blurts out “He’s a baaaaaaaad mamma jamma!” He also shots “JESSSS BABIES!” every time he gets excited (“jess” is his pronunciation of “yes”).
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Asked by one of my students, “Miss, how come Coach always makes us exercise but he’s still fat?”
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“That geography test wasn’t even in English! They were asking about dalai lama; that’s not even English!”
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I’m in the middle of a presentation about Sweden (the country where I grew up).
Me: Today I’m going to talk to you guys about Sweden!
Kindergarten boy: Sweden’s not even a real country!
Me: Yes, it is.
Kindergarten boy: I’ve never heard of it! Is it a state?
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In the middle of a presentation about Native American culture, a boy raises his hand.
Teacher: Yes?
Boy: My dad rode on an airplane today!
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Pre-K girl to me: “Because, because, you know what? My sister’s the bad one!”
Me: And which one are you?
Girl: I’m Rose!
Me: And you’re the nice one?
Girl: Yeah!
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More to come in the future. Stay tuned!
I don’t say this often, but conservative Christians finally got something right. One of the main contentions with gay marriage you always hear from God-fearing folks is the slippery slope argument - “If we allow gay marriage and sodomy, how long is it before we allow people to marry and have sex with animals?” - to which gay marriage advocates and other learned majorities always scoff and respond “It’s really not the same thing.” Well, my friends, it turns out those eyes were rolling a little too soon. A story (http://www.npr.org/2011/12/08/143395887/senate-bill-would-repeal-military-law-on-sodomy) on NPR announced today that the law prohibiting sodomy and sex with animals is being repealed. The bill states that anyone who engages in “unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.” The Senate repealed it in a 93-7 vote today. Kinda makes me wonder what these guys are up to in their free time.
On a serious note, though, it really disturbs me that the Senate is essentially proving the radical right to have been “right” along. We start with giving gay people the right to do it in (not a problem for me), but then we have to lump it together with legalizing the rape of animals? How does that work? Since when is the farmer condoned to abuse his livestock and the horse-riding policeman allowed a quickie in the stables after work? Where’s the outrage, people?
http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0/
Apparently, only sick cats fall under charities. Poor kids? Eh, screw ‘em, says PayPal.
Books I’ve read this year along with my brief opinion…
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson (amazing; can’t wait for the movie)
- The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins (good but not great; still can’t wait for the movie, though!)
- The Witches by Roald Dahl (hilarious; definitely want to check out the movie, which is on YouTube)
- A bunch of other Roald Dahl books (I read like ten of them since they’re all pretty short)
- The BFG by Roald Dahl (read it to my students, and they loved it; we watched the movie today and it was surprisingly good for an old cartoon)
- The Adrian Mole series (I pretty much read it every year because it’s my favorite and it never gets old ever - newest book in the series was disappointing, though)
- In the Woods by Tana French (crappy)
- Knots & Crosses by Ian Rankin (first book in the Rebus series; liked it and just bought the next one)
- Mila 18 by Leon Uris (amazing, amazing book about WW2)
- Currently reading: Hide & Seek by Ian Rankin, Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss (not sure if I like this one yet)
UPDATE
Decided to quit Man Walks into a Room halfway through… Krauss is fond of the same verbose writing style that Tana French uses and literally spent an entire page describing the main character immerse himself into the tub. Really, Krauss? Plus what I thought would be an Oliver Sacks-y type piece turned out to very unscientific and there is only so much disbelief I am willing to suspend when the main character isn’t even likeable.
I’ve been jammin’ to some Movits this evening and found this gem on Youtube. Someone actually took the time to translate the lyrics and superimpose them on the video - totally awesome! Saw this band live at SXSW two years ago and they were so dynamic and fun in person. I hope they come to Austin again soon!
Being a teacher, I’m constantly shocked, surprised, awestruck, you name it, by all the things I experience – all those adjectives that describe someone’s eyes popping out of their head, that’s me on a daily basis. The world of education is a strange animal, full of people who want to do good things and help kids, but also made impossible to contain by people whose number one love is not children but bureaucracy. I’ve been shocked to find what principals can get away with doing and what teachers can get away with not doing; I’ve been surprised by unfairness and inequities; and I’ve been awestruck by the amazing students I’ve met in my two years as a teacher.
I’ve had the desire to write about this for a while but never knew where to start. How do you describe all the joys and frustrations that come with this career? How do you do so anonymously? I decided the best place to start would be with the kids. But not my kids. I’m going to write about the teacher next door. For some reason unknown to all of us 5th grade teachers, this one woman gets stuck with the craziest mix of students every year. She’s got all the Special Ed. students. She’s got the emotionally disturbed ones. She’s got the GT kids. She’s got the ones who can’t read and the ones who are writing dissertations. I don’t know how she handles it, but her daily experience sure makes for an interesting story. So with the kids I start.
The Leech: This kid very obviously hangs out somewhere on the Asperger’s spectrum - he’s super smart and interested in weird stuff and definitely a bit socially inept. I call him the leech for two reasons: 1) he’s obsessed with leeches. The first time he talked to me it was to ask to borrow my phone so that he could look up the necessary equipment needed to feed a blood-sucking leech and keep it as a pet and 2) he is one. Homeboy zooms in on you from fifty feet across the playground and doesn’t remove his gaze until he’s standing shoulder to shoulder with you, and there he stays until you sternly tell him several times to go away.
Most memorable quote: “Have you ever heard of Harry Potter?”
The Professor: This boy is African-American but has very exaggerated Caucasian-looking facial features that are too mature for his age and make him look almost like a cartoon character. Being Autistic, he’s also got a very unusual personality. The first time I met him, he told me all about radiation and how it works. If I hadn’t been sitting right in front of him on the playground bench I would’ve sworn he was reading from a high school textbook and accused him of cheating. But he wasn’t - he was just talking, passionately, about one of his favorite subjects. He must have some kind of super-photographic memory that allows him to memorize exactly everything he has ever read about a subject, and I can’t say I’m not jealous. After a while we he drifted off to the jungle gym, his explanations of the dangers of radiation from the Sun still ringing in my ears, and then all of a sudden he was back, still talking about the same topic, as if he had never left. Radiation is not his favorite subject, he informed us, nor is it his strongest - that’s zoology biology.
Most memorable quote: ”I’ve been reluctant to tell you this, but I decided I must - at all cost! The student behind you is mocking you while you speak!”
The Freedom Fighter: The Freedom Fighter has a big mop of curly hair, warm brown eyes, and a smile as sweet as strawberries. It would surprise you then to know that he spends most of his time making plans for world domination. He wears a camo jacket most days, and is a geography whiz. When he’s not in the hallway banging his head against the wall and kicking furniture, he studies maps and history so that he can conquer the world and defeat terrorists and Iraqis. He also has a notebook full of sketches, plans, and maps that are his blueprint for taking over the globe. The Freedom Fighter, because of a tumultuous homelife, is also quite violent. Last week his teacher had to evacuate the entire class for almost an hour while he had a violent episode of overturning furniture and yelling about zombies.
Most memorable quote: “What should I be for Halloween - a Nazi or a suicide bomber?”
The Collector: This kid is like five energetic, hyped-up-on-chocolate toddlers wrapped into one 5th grade package. He can barely read, but he’s an amazing artist and can draw anything. He also collects things and is constantly coming over to the teachers’ table at recess to show off the trinkets he’s found: old rusty things and new shiny things.
Most memorable quote: ”I’m green! I’m big! I’m the Hulk!”
As I continue to fight (for or against I still don’t know) this beast that America calls public education, these oddball children will be what drives me. Weird quirks are present in all of us, but they become magnified in those forgotten children whose names are not likely to go down in history or even make a college enrollment list - unless, instead of withdrawing our hope in them, we put as much energy into them as they put into their desires: desires for poisonous pets, muscles like the Hulk, and world conquest.
DINOBOTS
I picked up In the Woods by Tana French at Half Price Books last week. I was in the mood to read a really good mystery, and the cover of In the Woods grabbed my attention.
In this case, however, looks were deceiving.
My mom read French’s third book, which is tenuously related to In the Woods, and described it as a balloon being blown up really big and then suddenly deflating into a soggy, wrinkled disappointment. I would describe the plot of In the Woods the same way.
The description on the back is classic thriller: two kids are abducted and never found again, years later there’s the random murder of a young girl in the same place, there are bloody shoes and torn shirts, and it’s all tied to the detective handling the case. French builds up the story with lots of intimate and interesting details of the characters, gets you hooked and emotionally involved almost right away, and keeps building up the mystery slowly but surely. The book was definitely hard to put down, and I just couldn’t wait to see how all the mysterious clues, events, and people would all link up in the end and reveal the person responsible for the abduction of the two kids, how the detective’s relationship with his partner would work out, and the final judgement for the person behind the murder. I read the book hungrily, waiting, waiting, waiting, for all the events that French built up to come to a killer climax, but it didn’t happen. Instead, there was absolutely no resolution to the child abduction: the reader is left with a book full of meaningless clues and nothing else. On top of that, the main character suddenly turns into the world’s biggest asshole, and his relationship with his partner falls apart.
But, wait, there’s more! The girl responsible for the murder and rape of her sister turns out to be - gasp! - 17 years old and is therefore never held accountable for her actions. Does French really expect the seasoned reader to believe that an entire murder squad would not check the main suspect’s birthdate? On top of that, the girl’s tenuous motive for the murder (and the main character’s attraction to her) is barely believable. Considering French’s writing style is hardly tolerable (verbose, over-the-top details with no purpose really bog down the book, and I found myself skipping a lot of long descriptions of amber glass reflecting on soft, dusty pink sweaters, etc.), her plot really needs to be airtight, and it’s not.
I went online to some book review forums where people were discussing their immense disappointment with the way the book ended, and there was a lot of talk about French’s subsequent books, The Likeness (written from the perspective of the partner in In the Woods) and The Faithful Place (deflated balloon). Everyone was speculating (more like praying) that French would satisfy her readers by revealing the mystery in one of these books, but alas! it was not to be. Maybe French thinks she’s being psychological and mysterious, but it really just seems like homegirl didn’t know how to end her book and left it at that.
I’m sitting in my apartment watching the traffic outside snake along the road like an enormous string of red Christmas lights, and it never stops moving. Jordan’s putting logs in the fireplace to make a fire, and he’s also got soup on the stove. I’m eating chips, and it’s finally gotten cold in Texas.
A big theme in 5th grade is author’s purpose - the students need to know why an author writes something, why he chooses that particular subject, and why he communicates it the way he does. I guess my purpose for writing is to give my brain a break from listening to my thoughts all day long. Maybe if I write my thoughts down, it’ll make room in there for better, more insightful ideas and answers to questions - questions like, “What am I doing the rest of my life?”
So I am not writing as a 5th grade teacher or as an aspiring anything. I’m just writing as me. I’ll write random thoughts down, book reviews, stories from real and imaginary life, dreams, wishes, irritations, and most of all those “unyielding, strong opinions” that my husband insists I have (and too often foist on him).
