Today it was blissfully quiet in my classroom during reading. It was so quiet, in fact, that I was considering granting my class a much-coveted compliment (they have been stuck at 16 forever, while they need to get to 25 to earn themselves either (a) a popcorn party or (b) a Michael Jackson dance party. Yes, I said that).
I assumed it was quiet because William is no longer with us (do you hear that? It is the sound of a choir of heavenly angels singing...it is also a story for an entirely different post). As it turns out, I should have known better. It was not quiet because my students were so studiously reading their books, drinking in the vast store of knowledge that can only come from endless re-reads of Mr. Putter and Tabby Bake a Cake. No, it was quiet because they were using the post-its from their book baggies -- which are supposed to be used to mark important parts of their books and jot down notes, thank you very much, yes I did teach that in a mini lesson about how readers blah blah blah by blah blah blay -- they were using the post-its from their book baggies to write and pass each other notes that read, among other things, "Suck my balls" and "Have sex with me." (And, by the way, the only reason I know exactly what these notes read is because I had to go digging through the trash can, CSI-style, to retrieve the evidence.)
Excuse me, I teach second grade. I do not teach middle school or junior high school, and precisely for the reason that I did not ever want to rehearse a phone call home that included the words "Today your son wrote 'Suck my balls' and 'Have sex with me' on a post-it."
What makes the whole thing even grosser is that these notes were being passed to girls, like, now I have a case of seven-year-old sexual harassment on my hands, which does not jive very well with our class trip to the petting zoo tomorrow.
Meanwhile, you know how every class has those girls who are very precocious and very prissy and very bossy and know-it-all and can always be counted upon to Inform you (yes, that's Inform with a capital I) who was doing what? Well, my authoritative informants assured me that Julio was the culprit (naturally), but his mother angrily told the guidance counselor that it wasn't his handwriting. (Which means that he didn't write the note, he just passed it around and flashed it at my Informants, which isn't really necessarily any better but ensures that his mother will probably hate me forever now for accusing her son of being a budding pervert.)
But, having now added Handwriting Comparison Expert to my growing list of teacher skills, I know who the real author of the note is. Alas, the number on his blue card turned out to be disconnected. I sort of hope he's at home right now playing with his DS, because I suspect that once I get in touch with Mom, today will be the last he sees of it for a long, loooong time.
1 comment:
My child's elementary school is across the street from a middle-school, and I have the privilege of overhearing many of their conversations.
It turns out that I didn't know nearly as much about the various uses and nuances of profanity as I thought I did. These kids make Eddie Murphy's "Raw" sound like something that could be aired on PBSKids.
So I guess I'm not surprised that there's some profanity and advanced reproductive thinking trickling down to the little ones.
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