Whatever Happened to Teen Angst?

From November 12, 2003….

Two real conversations I had with students today:

Number 1:
Me: What did you do this weekend?
Student: Oh, I broke up with my boyfriend.
Me: Sorry to hear that.
Student: No biggie.

Number 2:
Me: What’s going on?
Student: Well, R— was kissing my girlfriend in class.
Me: Oh really?
Student: Yes, I’m quite disappointed.

A Teachable Moment?

So I’m reading Huck Finn with my students today and we come to one of the chapters with the King and the Duke in which they have created a playbill at the bottom of which it  reads: “LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED”

So I ask the students if they can tell me what that statement implies and someone says that whatever they’re showing is going to be dirty, have nudity or whatever. And so I ask, and if the men in the town think that the show is going to be “dirty” like that what do the King and the Duke expect them to do? (The answer I’m going for, of course, is that all the men will show up for the performance and fill the theatre). At this point one of the boys in the front row raises his hand and says (in all seriousness): “Fondle themselves.”

Yes, that’s right people. “Fondle themselves.”

Plenty of Material

Let me tell ya, I’ve collected plenty of material for my blog over the last couple of weeks. Whether or not I’ll get around to sharing it is another question entirely though.

But here’s a good story from Friday afternoon.

We were talking about various topics, you know teaching, pedagogy, hot chicks…the usual range of teacher topics and Matt (who’s in my department) started talking about how he was always surprised that women seemed to be intrigued and maybe even turned on by the fact that he was a high school English teacher.

And I thought about it for a second and I was like “Dude, they were clearly into you and didn’t care what you did. They were pretending to find that cool. You could’ve said you were working at Taco Bell part time and they would’ve been swooning.” And I think I’m right about that one.

Well, that’s all I got for now.