1st graders are bad at math

I had a first grade class for two days this week, which left me with these precious moments:

Blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy: I'm Mexican.
Another kid: Me too. Do  you know how to say taco in Spanish? Burrito!

Me: Class, what's a foal?
Boy: It's a baby pony!
Girl: No, it's a baby horse. A pony gots the horn on its head.

We were working on a fun little activity called "Everyone is Special." On the first page they were to write their name and than finish the line, "I am...."
The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy from before wrote, "I am fragool." (At first I thought he was trying to write "frugal," but he said it's "fragile." I wasn't expecting a first grader to use either to describe himself.) I asked him what was another thing that he could put. His response: "I am... cute?" Well, there's no arguing that one.

I gave them a pretty tough math problem one day: There are 9 apples in a tree. If 3 of them fall out, how many are left?
One kid was very adamant that it was 7, despite everyone else saying it was 6, including me. He showed me on his hands. He put up 5 fingers on one hand and 4 on the other. When he put his 3 middle fingers down, he brought his thumb up, giving him 7. It took a while to explain to him why that was wrong.

The math problem the next day was just as hard: my mom made 12 cookies. My sister ate 7 of them. How many cookies are left for me?
I asked one kid what his answer was and how he got it.
"5?"
"How did you get that?"
"7?"
"How did you get that?"
"7!"
"7 is not an answer to how you solved your problem."
This one took a while as well.


Class dismissed!

God Bless Kindergarten Teachers

I had a kindergarten class yesterday for a couple hours. It made me really appreciate those warriors on the front lines who teach these kids full time. Sometimes, they're accidentally hilarious. Like this guy, who I'll call A*:

A: What's your name?
Me: Mr. Jefferson
A: Are you married?
Me: No.
A: Then why are you "Mister"?
Me: Ugh....

This same kid also commented on the softness of the back of his teacher's hand, which I thought was kinda strange:

A: Ms. Teacher's hand is soft. Like a feather.
Me: O... kay?
A: Or chicken.
Me: Um, what?!

But for all the unintentionally funny things they say and do, there are the kids who just don't understand when I say, "Face forward," "Hands to yourself," "Please sit down on the rug," "Absolutely no talking," "Don't pick your nose," etc. And I'm of course saying each of these roughly a bajillion times, and mostly to the same 4 kids. This class had a couple special cases.

Like Isaac. I don't know his story, but the aide seemed to let him do his own thing while the rest of the class was practicing the letter M, so I let it be. Well, Isaac came back to his seat right when it was about time to go to Spanish. I told the class that it was time to go. This kid burst into tears because he didn't have time to finish. I mean, he was bawling. I wanted to bring up that he was playing for the past half hour, but I had to wrangle up the others who didn't understand that we were done.

But the one who really takes the cake is Nate. Nate was one of those kids who couldn't sit still if his life depended on it. I threatened to send him to the office if he didn't move his patootie to the rug (I of course didn't use such language). He was running/crawling around the room all the time. It was when I picked them up from music that I had had enough. He pushed another kid out of the line. So I said, "Okay, Nate, I'm taking you to the office." He ran around the music room until I and the music teacher (who was also a sub that day) cornered him. Then I had to carry him to the office. Let me repeat that. I had to carry a 5-year-old, who had kicked his shoes off and continued to kick while I carried him, through the hallway, with his class and other classes watching, to the office. When we got to the office, the principal said that I'd done a good job because they expected him an hour earlier. That's good, I guess?

Needless to say, I was relieved when these kids left the classroom I borrowed to go terrorize their homes.

Class dismissed!

*All names have been changed to protect the identities of these weirdos.

Kids say the racistest things! (S1E2)

I thought about just adding this on to the previous post, since no one would notice because no one reads this blog (yet), but this deserves its own post. (Plus I can turn "Kids say the racistest things!" into a series)

I was walking through the halls after having dropped my 6th grade class off at the computer lab. This would be a good time to pick up some food, since I packed my lunch and left it in the fridge at home (for the second day in a row, 'cause I'm awesome). As I was walking to my car, I hear a tiny voice behind me. I didn't know this kid. I still don't. We didn't really converse. Our paths crossed and probably won't ever again. And so, it will be written in the history books that only three words were exchanged between me and this child:

"Hi, black man."

 I couldn't believe what I had just heard. I turned around slowly to see a little boy, probably in kindergarten, wave at me.

"Whoa! You refer to me by my race, and then wave at me, like I'm supposed to wave back?!" I mean, yeah, I am black, but you don't call people by their skin color. So what did I do? In a strange mixture of defiance and bewilderment, I refused to wave back. That'll show him! I bet he'll remember that the next time he wants to call someone "black man" instead of "sir."

Ok, so I didn't use it as a moment to defy the blatant racism or to (God forbid) teach this kid that that's not how you acknowledge people, but I was in such a state of shock that he so innocently called a (black) spade a (black) spade.

Class dismissed!

Kids say the racistest things!

There's a song in the wildly popular/inappropriate musical Avenue Q called "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist." Hang around children (or really anyone) and you'll see that that's true.

These are actual moments from my classrooms.

Non-Mexican student: "People always think I'm Mexican because of my last name."
Clueless White student: "What race are you?"
Non-Mexican student: "I'm Puerto Rican."
Clueless White student: "Isn't that the same thing?"
Me: *smh* (shake my head)
~~~~~~~~
White student: "Mr. Jefferson, are there white people in Africa?"
Me: "Yes."
Black student: "There are white people everywhere
White student: "That's racist."
Black student: "That's not racist. It'd be racist if I said 'I don't like that there are white people everywhere.'"
Me: *nmh* (nod my head)
~~~~~~~~
White student: "They don't have a language in Africa. They just click and stuff. *starts clicking*
Me: *vsmhawmh* (violently shake my head and wave my hands) "You should never say that again. You'll sound stupid." (I didn't say that last part, but I wanted to)
~~~~~~~~
Curious student: "So... where are you from?"
Me: "Phoenix."
Curious student: "I mean, what country?"
Me: "America."
Curious student: "Where are your parents from?"
Me: "Arizona and California."
Curious student: *frustrated*
Me: *hhhiv* (hold head high in victory)
~~~~~~~~

Those were all from the same junior high. This next one's from my Sunday school class, free of charge.

Chinese girl: "Are you from Ethiopia."

This is a lot less offensive when you take into account that she is a) 6-years-old and 2) adopted into a family that also adopted a boy from Ethiopia. She just must have figured that since her brother is black and is from Ethiopia, this other black person must be from Ethiopia.

Class dismissed!

Bullies & Instigators

I always thought that I'd be the ultra-strict teacher who just wouldn't put up with any of the crap the kids give, but I've learned that a teacher has to be flexible. There are certain rules that we just kinda have to overlook, unfortunately. If, for example, I gave out a detention every time I heard a cuss word, we'd run out of paper. Unless it gets really bad, I mostly just correct students (you mean "shoot," right?) or tell them to watch their mouths.

Today, I told a kid to watch his mouth. This kid is kinda funny to me. I subbed for his math teacher, and he was a handful. He said that he had ADD and used that as an excuse. But in this class (American History), he's always working hard with the student next to him. It's night and day difference. It might be the subject. It might be the teacher (I haven't heard anything good from these kids about their math teacher). It might just be that he has history 1st hour and he gets crazy as the day progresses. Who knows? It doesn't really matter to me.

But I heard him swear in class, and I told him to watch his mouth. He was looking angrily at another kid. Usually, "Watch your mouth" gets them back on track, but not this time. This kid was pissed. From what I gathered, Payton* (the kid who did the cussing-out) did something to provoke Hans (the kid being cussed-out). Hans called Payton retarded. Payton apparently does not like being called retarded. At all. 

So I had to take off my teacher hat for a second and put on my cop/negotiator hat. They both wanted to keep going at it while I was trying to talk them down. Hans kept turning around and saying, "Don't dish it out if you can't take it." I told him he needed to hush his mouth and turn around. Meanwhile, I'm trying to calm Payton down. This kind of thing was not in the substitute handbook (was there a substitute handbook?), so I have to use my gut. I don't like taking sides, but it was obvious that Hans was just provoking Payton to piss him off, which pisses me off. I hate it when kids (people in general, really) find a nerve and intentionally strike it. That's weak. That's cowardly. That's just plain wrong. If I see this happen again tomorrow, Hans is gone. That type of nonsense doesn't belong in any classroom, and I won't allow it in any that I'm in.

Well, I have to play teacher/cop/negotiator/counselor/father/babysitter/whatever for one more day. I'm honestly gonna miss (some of) them. I kinda hope I get to teach some of them when I start teaching full-time. That would be really awesome. But until then,

Class dismissed!

*All names have been changed to protect the identities of the students

Watch what's gone happen!

When dealing with elementary kids, I threaten to take away their recess, which to kids is like saying, "I'm going to give you bacon that tastes like lima beans."

This 3rd grade class just would not shut up (if you're a 3rd grade teacher or know a 3rd grader or own a 3rd grader, you know how this goes). So I told them that if they continued, I'd start taking minutes off their recess, doing my standard procedure.

This girl in the back didn't say anything, but the face she made said everything that needed to be said.

She made a face that said, "I know this fool ain't talking to us! Who does he think he is? Shoooot. He think he can take away our recess and get away with it. Substitutes be trippin'. Take away our recess, watch what's gone happen!"

It was precious.

Class dismissed!

It's not poisonous... anymore

A girl in my class today mentioned something stupid about liking cats.

Now, I would never run a cat over or put out Meow Mix laced with arsenic or dip a cat in honey and throw it at a bear... but I hate cats. It might stem from the fact that I'm deathly allergic to them and thus every single cat ever born is out to get me. It might stem from the fact that cats are evil. The jury's still out.

Anyway, this girl asked me if I liked cats, to which I responded, no, that's ridiculous, they're gross, do your social studies. She asked another student who said that he hates cats and that he has an aquarium. One with a blue frog.

Aside from my knowledge that cats are of Satan, I don't know much about animals. But I think I could possibly might have heard that blue frogs are poisonous. This student said that this particular type isn't poisonous.

Frog boy: "They stop being poisonous once you take them out of their natural environment."
Me: *confused look on face*
Cat girl: "That's like saying that once you take a dog out of the kennel, it's not going to bite you anymore."

Class dismissed!