‘School’ Stories
Why are you walking like that?
View all posts by grade7teacherOne of my grade 7 students came into class in the morning with what looked like a limp. He was holding his groin area and looked to be in some pain. This was the school day before Halloween, so a lot of students were dressed up in costumes. When I asked him what happened he tells me that he tried to scare his little sister this morning. She’s in grade 4, by the way. He had a monster mask on and was waiting for his sister in her closet with a plastic axe. He tells me that when she opened it, he screamed at her while pretending to swing a plastic axe at her and she then kicked him in the balls really really hard.
Corny Halloween Joke
View all posts by MrTeacherI was in a grade 2 class just the other day and we were going over the calendar in the morning and the kids became very excited when I mentioned Halloween coming up. One little boy raised his hand on the carpet and and said, “I have a Halloween joke.” After telling him to share he stands up and asks, “When does a skeleton laugh?” After a few kids guessed I asked him why and he responded with, “When someone tickles his funny bone!”
The Ladies Don’t Complain
View all posts by grade7teacherLast week we participated in the Terry Fox Run at my school to raise money for cancer research. Having the oldest students in the school, most of my grade 7 class was finished the run before everyone else. It was a very hot day and the students were drinking water after they had finished when I see one boy in my class take his shirt off and pour water over his head. I tell him to put his shirt back on and he resonds by saying, “Why? The ladies don’t complain!”
Felt just like kindergarten cop
View all posts by grade7teacherI teach grade 7 throughout the year but for the first week of school I had all of the kindergarten students until we figured out class placements for all the students. The school had a pancake breakfast one morning where the students all got pancakes and juice boxes. Normally this would be easy to manage in a grade 7 class, but with a bunch of kindergarten students and little experience with that age I found myself juggling many things at once to try and keep order. I can see many of the students begin to feel the sugar rush from their juice and pancakes as they take their first few bites. All of a sudden I hear a girl scream, “Oh no! There’s a fly on my pancake!” The boy next to her responds to this by smashing his fist into her pancake covered with syrup missing the fly. As the fly speeds out of the way another girl has the bright idea to try and hit the fly by squirting juice from her juice box at it. This idea became contagious within a matter of seconds and before 10 seconds was up I was feeling like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop when he first goes into his class. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then this is the clip from Kindergarten Cop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYU-uQNKQI8&feature=related
Doing Drugs
View all posts by leighroyAt the start of a lesson with a good, intelligent class I was somewhat bothered that they – rather unusually – entered the room very loudly and in a disruptive way. In fact they were all falling about themselves with laughter. I was initially worried that I had done something to provoke this but I waited for them to settle and then I thought it best to inquire as to their state. One student volunteered the information stating that they had just come from a Personal Development / Health lesson (called PDHPE here in NSW Australia) and their teacher had concluded the class with this statement, “ok everybody – now that we have covered sex, for our next lesson we will be doing drugs”. I think they misunderstood his meaning!!!
No Coke in Class
View all posts by grade7teacherAs a general rule I don’t allow any of my grade 7 students to eat or drink anything in class unless it is water to drink or something healthy to eat. I was surprised when I saw one of my grade 7 girls wide-eyed drinking a Coca-Cola and eating a brownie at 9 am during class. When I told her she had to put it away, she responded with, “Why? I’ve already had a lot of sugar. I had 2 Red Bulls before I came to school.”
What kind of stretch is that?
View all posts by TheTeacherWe had just finished a warm up in my grade 8 P.E. class and I was having students perform some mirror stretching with a partner. I look over to see a student (the biggest kid in class) performing what appeared to be tai chi. His partner was not mirroring him and was laughing. I ask him what he is doing and he responds by telling me that he watched Star Wars last night and is pretending to be Obi-Wan Kenobi. As he said this he pulled out an imaginary light saber from his pocket.
Twilight saga
View all posts by ShunkyOne of my students couldn’t wait for the Eclipse movie to come out, so she borrowed the book from me. When she returned it a month later, she said she had read only two pages and then she quit, as it was difficult to read (the book was in English and it is not our mother tongue). The other students started making fun of her, since at the upper-intermediate level (secondary school) you should be able to read books in English. For those who don’t know, this book starts with a letter with a long stroke overlay, to indicate the author of the letter changed his mind while writing it. When I asked my student how it’s possible not to be able to read those two pages, she said in surprise that she wasn’t referring to those two pages, she skipped them because the text was crossed out and therefore wasn’t supposed to be read.
Why were you absent yesterday?
View all posts by WestCoastTeacherMe: Why were you absent yesterday? Were you sick?
Student: Yeah. Sick of my alarm going off.
I have no clue how to do this math
View all posts by TheTeacherI just taught a Math lesson to my grade 6 class on graphing and students were working on some practice questions out of the textbooks they had taken from the shelves in the class. I’m circulating around the class and after a few minutes I see one student that has his hand up with a puzzled look on his face. When I get to him, he says, “I really don’t get this stuff. I was paying attention during the lesson but I have no idea what to do. I’m lost.” I ask him what question he is on and he says the first one. After looking at the question he is on I realize that he has the wrong textbook at his desk. This was clear to me because he had algebraic equations in front of him instead of graphs. He took an old algebra workbook I had at the back of the class instead of the grade 6 one and didn’t notice! I told him that he’s more than welcome to practice some algebra if he wants. He replied by saying, “No thanks!”
