Sex Ed

Me: Hey girls, what's all the drama about?
Carla: Well, Mina told Jannelle that she was a lesbian and she got someone pregnant with her finger...
Me: Oh! (two minutes of me trying not to laugh)
Lonnie: Yeah, and now Lupe is gonna beat Sondra up because of it!


Yes, notice that one girl says something about another girl and thus two entirely separate girls are in a fight. What?

Also, I saw Lupe between classes with another little girl trailing behind her, carrying her backpack and glasses for her. All I could think of was Tim in 1999: "Somebody hold my baby so I can put my cigarette out in this bitch's eyes! Hold my baby!"


In other news, I guess I always took Jerry Springer as hyperbole. I guess I was wrong.

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Teaching personification is much harder when your students are convinced that "trees have feelings!" The sentence "The tree reconsiders its leaves" is literal, because trees have feelings! They know when you cut them, they can feel it! Um, okay, but they can't think.... No, they can feel! They're alive! They have feelings!

I always thought Topenga Lawrence was cute; I never considered how hard it would be to teach her figurative language.

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Yesterday a little girl kicked a big gigantic boy in the shins, and he screamed "GODDAMNSHITMOTHERFUCKER!!!" The whole class was silent for a long second, staring at him, then at me, back at him, waiting for one of us to say something. Finally, I clapped my hands together. "Okay! Class dismissed!"

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Working on figurative language:

Annabell: (reading aloud) Wear this ring to remind you that I'll always be there for you.
Annabell and Juanita: (looking at one another, in unison) AWWWWWWWW!!

(SO CUTE!)

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Caleb: Ms. Backes, "My brother is a pig" is literal, right?
Me: Um, no. Your brother could act like a pig, but he couldn't actually be a living, snorting pig.
Caleb: What if we adopted him?
Me: If you adopted a pig? Then it would be a pet, not your brother.
Caleb: Yuh huh, then why do they always say "adopt an animal"??
Me: Again, pet, not brother.