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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I love teaching vocabulary

Last Friday, I stayed late, too late, at school, grading papers. Part of the reason for that was that I took up my students' journals to grade something they had written within, and I didn't want to take all the journals home over the weekend. Another part of the reason was that two of my former students came in asking if they could do anything to help me around the room.

I immediately put them to work, but as they were very talkative the whole time, it probably took me longer than it would have otherwise.

But that's not the point of the story. The point of the story comes from something that the boys told me about another student in their class. They told me that this child had been suspended for bringing alcohol to school.

When they told me that, I asked, "What kind of alcohol did they bring?"

One of the boys replied, "The white kind!"

And thus began the vocabulary lesson for the boys, as I rattled off a litany of possibilities, trying to hit on the white alcohol in question.

"Vodka? Rum? Everclear? Zima? Peach Schnapps?"

Afterwards, I was glad they had not said someone brought drugs to school. I could see a teacher grilling the kids:

"Was it marijuana? Coke? Cheese? Heroine? Yellowjackets? Speedballs? Goofballs? Ludes? Shrooms? X? Spanish Fly?"

(I later found out from another teacher that the alcohol in question was an airline travel-size bottle of Bacardi Rum.)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

reminds me of a line of questioning my friend's 7 year old surprised her with the other day: It started with her asking about a billboard, which led to a discussion of "remember how we have talked about smoking and how you can get addicted?" and led into Emma basically asking her mom to list all the kinds of "drugs" there are, and what they do to you.

Priest said...

Ah yes, the wild and errant Youth of Today ... total cream puffs. I grew up during the late 1960s and by 8th Grade had all ready "experimented" with ... let's see now, Acid, Ludes, Amphetamines, Valium (Mother's Little Helper so said the Rolling Stones), Barbiturates, Pot, Hash, Opium, Psilocybin (they grew wild out west of town in cow pastures after a summer rain) and just about anything with alcohol in it.

When I hear Adults going bonkers over the misbehavior and "attitude problems" of the Children today I just have to smile, nod my head knowingly … and quickly walk away before bursting out in hysterical evil laughter.

Yeah, nothing like a bunch of 13 year old boys zooted to the max on Ludes and wine indulging in a little nude water skiing just to shake up the fine people enjoying the lake that day. And they thought the water was going to be calm …

As I told one Young One that thought they had what it took to push my buttons ... "You'll have to up your game several levels just to get me to notice you. Now get in your seat, Skippy."