Sunkissed

A bizarre question from a third grader today.

Girl: Mr. Mac, would you rather touch the sun or kiss a boy on the mouth?

Me: Wha?!

Girl (excited): Please say you'd rather kiss a boy on the mouth!

Duh

Kindergarten, probably my most/least favorite grade to teach.


Pluses: adorable, imaginative, sweet, innocent, tons of energy

Minuses: sticky faces (snot, slobber, leftover snack), screaming, attention span of a goldfish, tons of energy

Mainly due to the absence of attention after 10 seconds during any activity, I shy away from working with kindergartners. However, they have no filter and their mouths are constantly vomiting words, so they say some amazing things.

Boy 1: I have like 18 girlfriends.

Me: Wow, that's a lot...how do you do it?

Boy 1: I dunno, but I like this other girl too...[girl's name], she's Chinese. I want her to be my girlfriend, but I don't speak Chinese.

Me: Does she only speak Chinese? She doesn't speak English?

Boy 1: No, she speaks English too.

Me: I don't see the problem.

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Boy 2: My dad has a girlfriend.

Me: Where's your mom?

Boy 2 (frustrated): What?! My mom is married to my dad.

Me: But he has a girlfriend too?

Boy 2 (condescending): Yeah he has a girlfriend too, duhhhhhhhhhh!

Me: Interesting. Oh, and you've got a bunch of slobber on your face.

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Girl: Mr. Mac, [Boy 1] said shiiiiit!

Letting the Cat out of the Bag

The ball is in your court. A leopard can't change his spots.  Don't shit where you eat.

Idioms are the disses that our teachers used against us when we were snot faucets clamoring for attention and a shoe tie. We were in the dark in regards to what they were talking about, but as we got older we heard these more at home and school, and placed them in our memory banks.  Many of my students are learning English as a second language and as a result have not been exposed to English idioms. I've made it a daily activity to introduce a new idiom, explain it, and help the kids knock it out of the ballpark (hotdog) with a delicious sentence.  I opened up a can of worms when we began to discuss "letting the cat out of the bag":

Girl: It's an interesting story actually. I let the cat out of the bag one time when my sister told me a secret. She told me that she was a lesbian.

Class (Bonkers): WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT????!!!!

Me: Ok, ok, chill out, let's be respectful. [Girl] is this story school-appropriate?

Girl: Yeah...sooooo, I let the cat of the bag when I told my parents that she was a lesbian.

Boy (volcanic interruption): Why would your sister tell you that?

Me: Her sister probably trusted her with the secret. Most sisters I know are very close.

Boy (going for the cheap laugh): Maybe they're a little tooooooooooooo close.

Class: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Me: That's five minutes at recess man.

His comment was completely uncalled for, but I was amazed with his comedic timing. I had to turn my head away from the class after the punchline for fear of losing credibility with my recess punishment.

Chinese

I held some ridiculous notions of what Asian people were like when I was a kid, because I hardly knew anyone from that background. Many of my kids suffer from this same ignorance:

Me: Anybody do anything fun or exciting last night?

Girl: Yeah, we went to a Chinese restaurant, it was so good. BUT, we were the only Mexicans there.

Me: Sweet, I love Chinese food.

Girl: My dad was speaking Chinese to the waiter, but the waiter didn't understand what he was saying.

Me (puzzled): Does your dad know Chinese?

Girl (nonchalantly): Oh no, he was just making up words.

Me: Hmmmm...(as I decided what to respond back) The waiter probably thought your dad was making fun of him because he was making up Chinese words.

Girl (oblivious): Oh, well my sister and I were making Chinese eyes at the restaurant so that we looked like everyone else (as she used her fingers to stretch her eyes towards her ears)

Me: Yeah, you're not supposed to do that either.

Matchmakers

I don't remember being very interested in my teachers' personal lives outside the classroom, maybe because most of my time was spent annoying them INSIDE in the classroom.  However, a few of the kids that I work with want to know everything that is happening in my life, and at times need to tell them to stop creeping, "Have you ever been in love? What did it feel like? Where do you take girls on dates? How many girlfriends have you had? Why don't you live with your mom?" Recently a couple of fourth graders were hunting around for some choice info:

Girl 1: Mr. Mac, how old are you?

Me: I'm 27.

Girl 1 (beside herself with excitement): Oooooooooooooooh! My mom is 28...

Me: Awesome...you're making it sound like you're trying to set me up with her.

Girl 2: Well...what kind of girl do you like? Nerdy, sexy...or lesbian?

Me: Ladies, we aren't having this conversation.

Osama bin Celebratin'

Grogginess is on the menu for most of my fourth graders come Monday, but today I was bum rushed with kids amped on patriotism.  Most of these kids were less than a year old on September 11th, yet the media had whipped these 20 kids into the "Osama Pajama Deathfest 2011" frat party. Four Loko seemed to stream through their veins as they squirmed in their seats and "Osama" slurred out of their mouths.  Instead of fighting against the drunken ramble, we had a class meeting.  Frat president manned the convo for us all:

Frat Pres: Well, we killed the guy that flew two planes into the two towers. Osama bin Laden, was he a bad man? How did he fly TWO planes into the towers and survive?

Me: Yep, he was a bad man, that's why we've been hunting him down for the past decade. And he didn't fly the planes, but he was in charge of the terrorist group that did.

Frat Pres: Ok, well anyways I don't have cable but I was watching on the internet.  My whole family was so happy...we were all celebrating!

I was so happy I went on the internet and printed a picture of his dead body with all the bullet holes in him and I taped it on my wall.

Me: Wow...

Frat Pres: I'm not finished. Then I got my bow and arrow and started shooting arrows at him...it was so fun.

Me: What?! You were shooting arrows INSIDE your house? Like plastic NERF arrows?

Frat Pres: No!!! REAL arrows, I made them out of wood. I kept trying to shoot the arrows at his head, but I kept hitting him in his privates!!!

Me: Ok, ok, ok...this is getting a little out of control, anybody else have something to say?

Frat Pres: Then we had PIZZA!!! We celebrated by having a pizza party! 

That's America.