LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING

We were having indoor recess. I was at my desk and listening to the banter between two little boys. One, the class bully, was always bragging about his accomplishments and belittling the other children. We were constantly correcting him. The other little boy, sweet, shy and doe eyed. He was also the newest student. I heard the bully child say to the sweet boy "Hey, you can't belong to my club because you aren't cool enough." "Frankly" said the SIX YEAR OLD " I don't give a flying fuck!" The bully looked like he was about to faint and the sweet little boy got back to the business of his legos. I pretended I didn't hear!

THE TRUTH HURTS

The principal was taking a potential new student's Mom on a tour of the school. She came in to our classroom of 2nd graders and said "what is the best thing about second grade?" In unison two little boys called out "recess!" Well then, she continued, "what is the worst thing about second grade?" In unison the same two little boys called out "her singing" pointing to ME!

DON'T QUIT THE DAY JOB

I was sitting at the back of the room grading papers while the children worked quietly on their math pages. I was singing quietly to myself (so I thought) when a little girl called out "face it Mrs. B., you're NOT going to Hollywood!"

P PLEASE

I do various timed tests, drills etc. in the classroom. When we do a multiplication timed test, we switch papers and correct them together. There are 100 problems on a page and the rows are lettered instead of numbered. The first row is A, second is B, and so on. I call out "John read A, Sue B" etc. We were on letter P and without thinking I said "Daniel, P for us." The class didn't catch on until I started to giggle when my mind "saw" the phrase "Daniel pee for us." It took us several minutes to get back under control. I haven't made that mistake again. :)

STUCK ON YOU

I give my 5th graders stickers as prizes to use on a sticker chart. They earn them for good grades and are are placed on their papers that go home each week to get signed by their parents. The last batch of stickers I bought were not cut properly so I had to rip at them to get them apart. One of my girls said "These stickers have separation issues."

A SKIN TIGHT FIT

I was scolding a first grade girl in private. We were in the hall and I had crouched down to speak to her about her poor behavior. When I paused she said "your skin on your face doesn't fit so good anymore, does it Mrs. G? All I could think was thank God we were in the hall!

A PROUD MOMENT FOR GRAMPS

I happen to know that this particular student comes from a prominent family in our community. Her grandfather is the retired CEO of a very well known company and he is known as a brilliant businessman. There was an article about him in the paper a few weeks back, annoucing his retirement and plans to move to Florida. This is what his grandaughter wrote in first grade:

"I am proud of my Grandad because he just got retarded. He is moving to a place for retarded people and it is called a retarded community. I am proud of my Grandad for being so retarded."

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

I was watching the kids at recess. One of my former students, now a fourth grader came over to say hello. I mentioned that I was five months pregnant and would be expecting a baby in June. "Hmmmmmm," he said, stroking his chin and staring at me intently. "That means that Mr. Jones' male cells met your female cells exactly five months ago, during mating, is that correct?" Somehow I'd prefer it if he believed in the stork!

CLASSROOM CLONE

It was impossible for my second grade boy to sit still. He was always wiggling around, out of his chair and on the go. One evening I was at a concert and noticed him sitting in front of me with his family. It amazed me that he was sitting perfectly still throughout the entire performance.

The next day at school I said "Wesley, I am confused. How were you able to stay seated in your chair at the the concert for two whole hours and you can't sit at your desk for even one minute?" He retorted "Oh that guy? He's my clone. I send him to those things for me."

THIS IS NOT A BLONDE JOKE!

I was teaching tenth grade English. There was a very attractive, but none too bright, blonde girl in my class. She also happened to be well endowed. She came, ahem, bouncing in one day wearing a really beautiful sweater. It looked to be eskimo in origin and had two animals on the front that appeared to be moose. She sat down and I walked over to her and said "Melody, what an interesting sweater, and what are those" as I pointed at the front of her sweater. No kidding, she glanced down, looked up at me and without missing a beat said "BOOBS!"

BUCKLE UP FOR SAFETY

I was lining up my second graders to go down to the cafeteria for lunch. We would be passing the principal's office so I asked them to please "do a good job" and walk quietly, in a straight line with arms at their sides because the principal would see us. One little guy immediately bent over at the waist, clutching himself as if he were cold and trying to warm himself. I asked him to get his sweater and he said he didn't need one. We started to pass the principals open door and he doubled over again, causing the boy behind him to knock into him and almost knock him over. "Bobby" I reprimanded "you must follow my direction and stand up staight NOW!" So, as fate would have it he stood up straight, arms at side directly in front of the principals door and his pants fell to the floor, around his ankles, exposing his skinny white legs and RED briefs! "Buddy" I said to the crying child, why didn't you tell me you need a belt? "You didn't ask me" was the response.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

My friend had just accepted a teaching position. It was to start the day after winter break. When his alarm went off he was delighted to hear the radio announcer say that schools were closed. He smiled and snuggled back down under the covers. He was mildly annoyed, an hour or so later, when the phone started to ring and he just ignored it and rolled over. After the fourth call he decided he'd better answer it in case it was an emergency. It was the principal asking where he was. He replied "It's a snow day, haven't you heard?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth he noticed there was not a snowflake in sight outside the kitchen window. He hustled to school, two hours late after checking and seeing that the radio was set to a Buffalo station!

JUST SPANK EM

We returned to preschool the week after Christmas. I was very tired and had asked a little boy repeatedly to stop a particular behavior. The last time I said "why don't you listen to me when I ask you to stop?" A child standing next to me said "why don't you spank him? It always makes me listen better when my Mom spanks me." I found it so amusing as I told the class that teachers weren't allowed to spank children. They were amazed.

WHISKEY, ANYONE?

It was a creative writing class for fourth graders. The direction was to write several paragraphs using suspense. The students were showing me their rough drafts. One boy, a new student, told me his was going to be called "Whiskey Wiver." I told him he'd have to change it, that it was inappropriate to use "Whiskey" in his title and besides "Wiver" wasn't a real word. He looked dismayed and said "No, I mean Whiskey!" The poor child had to repeat himself, speech impedement and all several times before It hit me that he meant "Risky River!"

ONE MANS (WOMANS) TRASH.....

This still makes me gag at the thought. It happened last June, I had a little boy in the first grade who was constantly putting things in his mouth. I'd catch him sucking or chewing on something and ask him to put it in the wastepaper basket. It happened several times a day. Everyone was pretty distracted on this particular day because there were only a few days left til summer vacation. Sure enough, early in the day i noticed that BJ had something in his mouth. I told him to spit it in the wastepaper basket and he obliged. Imagine my horror when a tampon applicator came shooting out of his mouth into the basket.

CHRISTMAS CRISIS

A seven year old girl in my class was annoyed that she was expected to go to church on Christmas Day. She asked why they needed to go. Her mother had explained that Christmas Day was Jesus' birthday and just like she got to choose where she went on her birthday to celebrate, Jesus wanted people to go to church to celebrate the day he was born. "Yeah, but why does it have to be on CHRISTMAS?" she replied.

SPELLING TROUBLE

I asked my second graders to write a sentence about P.E. One little girl called out, indignant "No fair! We don't know how to spell P.E!

BIRTHDAY BOY

At the beginning of the week the third grade class was doing a birthday bar graph and the kids had to color a cupcake and write their birthdate on it. One student couldn't remember his birthday....no worries...I looked it up and gave it him the date. About two minutes later he got this amazed look on his face and shouted out "Hey! That was my birthday last year too!"...

BLONDES DO HAVE MORE FUN!

Anonymous writes:

I have many stories, but here is a recent one.

I teach at a Jewish school, and Purim is a big holiday for us. We all dress up, including the teachers.

My normal appearance is demure; I have curly brown hair and I dress professionally. Well, on Purim, I dressed in a completely different manner. I had a long blonde wig with bangs, a la Barbie, fake eyelashes, a black slinky outfit and I looked very different. Some would say I was "hot."

It was so much fun to see the reactions this elicited from everyone. One of my seventh grade students shrieked every time she saw me and people at least did a double-take. Others did not recognize me at all and once they did, the adults laughed and complimented me on my new look. Middle schoolers told me I should dye my hair platinum blonde as it "looked good" on me. I had to reveal my true identify as I returned to my normal appearance the next day.

The most fun part of the day was the Purim skits performed by the teachers. There was one part where the hero selects the heroine of the story, Esther, as his queen. At the last minute, since they were short an actress, they shanghaied me to be a third female candidate in their rendition of "The Dating Game." I created a personality called "Cecilia" who had a high voice and was a total ditz.

The unexpected side effect of this was that the entire population of the second and third grade boys fell in love with "Cecilia." They followed me around for the rest of the day, declaring their love and desire to marry me.

Of course, the next day, when I returned normal, I had no fan club. The desire for blondes continues to live strongly in the young generation!

NODULE?

I can believe the "Mutt" story. I had a similar thing happen with a new student from England. I called him NODULE all year long. EVERYONE called him NODULE and he responded to NODULE. His name was Nigel!

THE NEW KID IS A MUTT

I had a new student and he was from Wales. He told me his name was "Mutt." I called him "Mutt" to his face and referred to him as "Mutt" in discussions with his parents. I wrote "Mutt" in all the documentations and letters home. All his classmates and the principal called him "Mutt." Several months later I saw some paperwork forwarded from his previous school. It said his name was "MATT" not "MUTT." I asked him his first name again and he said I'll spell it for you. It's "M A T T", MUTT!" I should have caught on sooner because he called his classmate "Putrick."