A few weeks ago, a student asked me a simple question about my anatomy? "Teacher, you are a man, yes?" When a student has to seek confirmation of my sex, the likelihood of it being a positive interaction isn't promising. So, I reluctantly answered yes. You know, in a way that says: I have no clue to where this conversation might travel. And you are fucking scaring me. With the confidence of a man who had recently had sex and the syntax of the all wise Yoda, he looked at me with a smile and said, "So, dick you have?"
"Do I have a dick?"
"Yes, teacher. Man you are and dick you have?"
The entire time he had a stupid ass grin on his face. The grin let me know that he had learned it and knew exactly what it meant. On a scale of worse things a student can say/do it ranks pretty high. It wasn't like the empty fuck you's that Korean kids learn from watching Hollywood movies. Those curse words are essentially directed at no on in particular. They come out of their mouths and disappear like a vapor into the noise of the living. I politely asked him to never say that word again in my classroom and he never did. Later he will find ways to use the word dick but I am not going to be an enabler.
But I have to admit. I let a curse word slide once. Well, in a way I did. One shitty ass student was teasing another student about his sister. The shitty kid is a little bigger than the kid being teased. The teased kid is the kind a student any teacher would love to have. The shitty kid is pretty cool too. He is just, well...shitty for insulting a man's sister. Finally, amongst other things that sounded more weird than insulting, the bully said, I'm gonna eat out your sister. The kid turned around, looked him in his eyed let out slow meaningful "Fuck...you."
Of course I had reprimand them both but damn, that's awesome context.
Of course I had reprimand them both but damn, that's awesome context.