tales from the school yard

This per diem teaching gig is actually pretty interesting. A teacher in my shoes gets some pretty interesting experiences as the days go by. Have a chuckle with a few of them...

• Upon getting a group of 5th grade students from another teacher early last week, I asked one student, "are you chewing gum?" His reply was, "no, I'm Michael Anderson."
• I was assigned to a lovely class of 4th grade students where, upon arriving in class for the day, one student presented me with the following note..."Dear Sir, please excuse C for his absence as he has been bleeding from his a**e over the past week. Can you let him to go to the toilet anytime he wants."
• After I had finished reading aloud a chapter from the novel, Rascal, I asked my fifth graders to illustrate a favorite scene from the book. One child, exasperated, raised his hand and asked, "Can't we just draw a picture?"
• The same fifth grade class was playing a game of Outburst one afternoon. In this game, teams try to name as many items which belong in a certain category. The category was Scary Things. The kids named many typically scary things, from monsters, horror movies, the dentist, the dark, to scary movies. Since they needed to reach a total of ten items for maximum points, they were all quiet for a few moments when one boy had a great one. He exclaimed, "Ooh, what about that scary place called the ... uhm, the ..., UTERUS! You know, that scary place babies come from." Well, there was silence for a few moments as I tried to determine if anyone else even knew what he was talking about. Finally, I lost it and burst out laughing. This young man had recently gained a baby sister and his doctor-dad and nurse-mother had obviously been quite explicit in their explanations!
• At Math time, I told the kindergarten class I was teaching that we were going to talk about Even and Odd. One boy yelled out- "I know that story. It's in the Bible! " After I quit laughing, I said- "I think you mean Adam and Eve. "
• I was handing out directions on how to make something. I can not even remember now what it was. One little boy turned to the kid next to him and he said--- "I love it when Mr. M hands out erections."
• My 5th graders were doing their warm-ups when one came up to ask a question about something he didn't understand. He read it out loud to me. "According to the picture, how much would the orgasms be magnified." I am so proud of myself...without laughing, I politely corrected his pronunciation. "That word is organism, dear."
• I was taking my kindergarten class to the art room, when upon walking in the door, one of the little boys said, "It smells like marker breath in here!"
• I passed out snack to a class of kindergartners. One young man looked up at me and told me that he wanted to share his cookie. (He had licked, smeared and slobbered it all over his face.) I told him no thank you, and explained that I had gained weight over the winter break and needed to be careful about eating snacks. He looked at me and I could tell his little mind was thinking. I started to feel bad and decided I WOULD choke down the cookie somehow! But then he said, "Teacher, its ok, really, I think you look the same fatness!"

Out of the mouths of babes, that's for sure. The experience, so far, has been fascinating. I've learned a lot! I'll share more as time moves along.