Monday's Madness

Funny things that happened in a single day of teaching this past Monday:

* After using an abundance of words beginning with W the previous class, I instituted a letter of the day Sesame Street style. For this day, K was the letter of choice. We brainstormed awesome words starting with K and "kelp" was the big winner. One student kept shouting out brand names, so I called eir a "corporate shill" which pretty much went over everyone's heads. Later, when I randomly grouped students for discussion, one student noticed all of eir teammates had the first initial of K. "I win!" ey said. "Three K's!" "Let's not cheer for 3 Ks," I deadpanned. Then we proceeded to make fun of racists. Granted, a lot of these kids are racist, but it's a step in the right direction.

* I have a new favorite student. Ey's shy, so it's been easy to overlook eir clever, subtle humor. I first noticed when my students shared what they did over their winter break, and after countless mundane stories, ey said that ey sunbathed with Fabio on the beach. At first, I actually believed it, because I didn't even consider eir capable of joking, but subsequent events like the baby in the dumpster quip, I'm down to eir humor. At any rate, on this day, one of the twins interrupted my lesson to announce, "Mr. [Kevin]! Yesterday, my friend threw a cell phone at my ear." "Is your friend Naomi Campbell?" I replied. My favorite student, who, again, is shy, attempted to stifle eir laughter as usual so as not to draw attention to eirself, ended up choking as a result of her restrained laughter. That was awesome.

* A student told me ey was thirsty, but I wouldn't let eir get a drink at the moment. Still, the idea of drinking water was so appealing, I retreated to my side room where there is a sink to fill up a cup with water, which I drank in front of eir. (Yeah, I was intentionally being a punk.)
"Where'd you get the water?" ey asked.
"A sink," I replied.
"Oh, I thought you had like a waterfall back there," someone else said. "Right," I responded. "Beyond that wall is a magical land with a pristine waterfall."
"And bunnies?"
"Yes, and bunnies," I said calmly. "Usually I slaughter them and eat them for lunch."
"Wait, really?" came a confused voice from the back.
These kids, I swear!

* No fewer than five times throughout the day, I told my students to "have a good weekend." It was a Monday, but clearly I had leaving on the brain.

* When I snipped at a student, ey retorted, "You're like my mom when she's on the rag."

* After school, I went to a fellow teacher's room for a meeting. On the board was a student's handwriting with the word "Nazis" written in huge letters with a bulleted list of the atrocities Nazis committed underneath it. Normally, I wouldn't laugh at something like that, but the letter "i" in the word Nazi was, get this, dotted with a heart. I probably chuckled at the absurdity of that for a good full minute.