Teaching 15-year-olds is never dull, and I think you could teach for 30+ years and still be surprised. Though I've only taught for 3 years, here are 2 semi-funny, semi-inappropriate for the classroom, yet true, stories that happened this past week.
The first comes from my own classroom--between classes last week, a student wrote an anatomically inappropriate word in huge letters on my chalkboard. (And when I say written on the board, it was in 4 foot letters across the entire chalkboard). When I walked into my classroom and saw it, I tried to remain calm and just casually erased it as the class was slightly snickering. When I stepped out in to the hallway for a moment later that class and came back in, the word was written again, this time spelled in smaller letters, but still spelled incorrectly! I just tried to ignore it and continued the class.
After finding out who wrote it, I talked with the assistant principal about the kind of funny, but still inappropriate word for a Spanish classroom!! The principal laughed and told me to just ask the student why she did it, and then the principal told me this similar story that came from a recent biology class...
The biology class was doing group presentations, and one group (of nice, but boisterous students )chose Tourettes Syndrome as their topic. Their opening statement, and their opening Powerpoint slide said, "Tourettes Syndrome: What the F*** is it?"
Nice, eh? Ah, the life of a highschool teacher - - - sometimes, a little more boring would be nice!
I just came across your blog linked from FF and couldn't resist sharing this story with you.
Years ago I was teaching 4th grade in a Christian school. We were about to have an English grammar lesson so I asked all the kids to get out their books. One child, who was one of the the sweetest and kindest little 10 year olds I had ever taught (not to mention the smallest and with the squeakiest voice I have ever heard), said very, VERY loudly (and I apologize I am about to use profanity on your blog--if it offends you please feel free to delete the comment): "F-U-C-K ENGLISH!!!!" (He spelled it out just like that).
I was shocked and stupidly asked him what he had just said. Very proudly, he repeated himself, again very loudly: "F-U-C-K ENGLISH!!!"
The class was as shocked as I was and none of us knew what to do. I think I told him to wait out in the hall for me because what he had just done was unacceptable (and also because, to be very honest, I was having a very hard time not laughing---the fact that it was THIS particular child saying this made it funny and not something necessarily crude--I knew there was no way he knew what he was saying).
When I talked to him about it he said he did know it was a bad word, but didn't know it actually meant the same thing if you spelled it out. I reminded him that everyone in the class could spell so it did mean the same thing.
I don't remember exactly how I handled it, but I know he was petrified about being in trouble. I think I probably had him write the word down in a "bad word book" that I kept and told him next time he did something like that he would have to show the book to his mother. He never did it again. And he was so sweet, I think he spent the rest of the day apologizing to the rest of the class.
Anyway...thanks for the laughs. The good stories like that are one of the better parts of teaching.
Oh, I can't wait until I start teaching high school! any idea why the student wrote that word (and spelled it wrong? :)
Devon,
I think the student just wanted attention. She got it, huh?
And, BTW, you'll love the life of a high school teacher. :-)
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