Oh The Places I'll Go . . . : "You Can't Make This Up: Teaching Moments"

I once sat on the most amusing lunches during my student teaching placements. These teachers would swap their "war" stories of the most insane and ridiculous stories they experienced with children. It came about because I was in utter shock that the boys football team at Oregon City was taking poops in their urinals. And the story's these veterans told me were crazy! They used to joke with me that we needed to write a book called "You Can't Make this S*#¥ Up."

Anyways as I have begun teaching full time I have gained a few "Can't Make This Up" moments and witnessed even more. I thought I'd share some of these for some good laughs (in retrospect I can now see the humor in some of them).

Last week: one of the smallest 7th graders was mad at my ESL support so he proceeded to cuss him out in Arabic and then kicked the poor guy in his...more sensitive area if that makes sense. Same said student also tried punching another male teacher in October (this teacher is over 6'2 and the kid comes to my waist ha). Someone has a problem with male authority essentially.

Last month: A 6th grader in our school refused to get out from under his desk so all the teachers just gave him his work and let him sit underneath it like he was preparing for an earthquake!

Last week: I am teaching a novel on a racially divided town in the 60's so I did a mini lesson on slavery and the civil rights movement in America. We then turned it into a discussion of what is racism. My students swore that they have no racism in their country. Then they proceeded to say when they beat their nannies and drivers it's not their fault and what else are they supposed to do. (This one doesn't make me laugh but just makes me sad for these kids and the people that work here).

Two months ago: A student of mine was running around the room making car noises and refused to sit down. So I proceeded to "race" him during class. The bet was if I won he had to sit. This included me making car noises and pretending to be driving a car around the room. I even included some appropriate drifting action and noises as well. My students were so impressed they were perfect remainder of the day (they're13 by the way).

Four months ago: I asked my boys to write about there winter break. Several wrote about fictional girlfriends they had. When I asked them why they said they have 16 girlfriends they swore that because ALL American boys have at LEAST 4 girlfriends. Theirs words exactly "and miss they lie to all of them and wala they each have 16! Wala my friend has 16!" No matter what any of us say they still don't believe me that guys generally only date 1 girl in America....

Yesterday: We took our students on a field trip to ice skating then bowling at Zayed Sports City. They were wonderful in the ice ring. We were having so much fun. There was another school there (public school) and the high school boys kept talking about all the female girls saying they wanted their numbers. My girls ignored them and it wasn't a big deal. But our boys anxious for a fight starting talking to these guys and claimed they were honor bound to fight for the girls ha. No fight happened till waiting for the buses when a boy from the other school rushed one of our boys and started choking him. Needless to say our boys jumped him. . . Teachers intervened and by then our boys had cooled down should have been over. But the teacher from the other school barged over with his whip in his hand (yes he was whipping kids to get them on the bus) and continued to scream at all of us teachers, while shaking his whip at us, that our kids are crazy and we are ill equipped teachers. We couldn't stop laughing as he said this because at that time he had to physically restrain his students just as he said we couldn't control our students.

I would love to hear more stories from fellow teachers who read this! Maybe someday we can collaborate and make a book haha!! Below are some pictures of the ice skating trip mentioned: