True Stories from the Classsroom · 12:36am Jan 14th, 2023
Those of you who followed me on my blog surely know, since I mentioned it many a times, that I work in education. Some of that time I've been a teacher, some of it a basically-a-teacher-but-for-accounting-reasons-it-has-a-different-name, and most of it in the field of English learning, both ESL and Newcomers.
This year, though, is different. I'm still teaching, but at a new school, and now... sixth-grade Social Studies.
This is a change I was looking to make, and I'm enjoying what I'm doing, but it's been a big transition. It's been about a decade since I worked with middle-schoolers, and this is my first time teaching Social Studies at all.
There are a lot of things I could tell you about my job, but instead of nittying and grittying, I'm going to present you with a few true exchanges I've had with my students over the past couple of weeks. Names withheld to protect the innocent. Context optional. Scenelettes away!
Me: When I read this next passage, I want to warn you all that it has language we don't use today. I expect you all to be mature about it; even though it's offensive today, I think it's important to understand how people talked and wrote in the 1850s.
[reads passage]
Student: Wait, was "Negro" the racist part, or was he speaking Spanish?
Test Question: Do you think there was a way to avoid the violence that resulted from the Missouri Compromise? Why or why not?
Student: [sic] I don't know, sorry probably someone smart could? The Missouri Compromise was pretty Big Brain though.
After having given the students a recipe for homemade hardtack that they could try making over the weekend, the top line of which read, "WARNING: this will not taste good! It is, however, almost exactly what soldiers on both sides of the Civil War used as one of their main sources of calories."
Me: Did anyone try the recipe at home?
Student: It was so dry! It was like eating sand that sticks to your teeth!
Me: I did warn you about it.
Student: You should've warned us harder!
Student: Was Texas one of the slave states?
Me: Yes, they--
Student: Yeah, they seem like a slave state.
Me: [speaking about The Caning of Charles Sumner] I know that from where we sit today, it's hard to imagine something like this actually happening, but--
Student: I CAN!
Me: Well, fair enough, but I don't think there are any US politicians today who would actually use physical violence at the capital.
[two days pass]
[certain events unfold]
Me: I need to start class today with a correction...
I mean, I didn't know; guess it didn't pop up in any of the legacy reviews of yours I've checked (which isn't an insignificant amount!). But a teacher, that's pretty cool (and at a decade plus, a seasoned one at that), as is doing Social Studies.
Though, yeah, tweens and fresh teens, they can be pretty blunt and, ah… set in their ways at times!
Still, long as they are honest and eager to learn deep down, it's worth it, I presume. 
Ah, so different from the days where they just wanted you to see what they'd done in the bathroom.
oh my god, that last entry though
I start my student teaching on Tuesday. I’m a little nervous, but it’s high school….
My wife (also high school teacher) has plenty of great stories. From yesterday, when it was her birthday:
Student: Miss, how old are you?
Wife: I just turned 40
Student: *squints* Are you sure?
Me, working at a middle school as the primary IT guy: "How did this damage [cracked screen, missing keys, soda spills, laptop ripped in half, driven over by a car, etc.] happen?"
Every child ever: <shrugs>
Me: "Why didn't you tell me as soon as it happened?"
Every child ever: <shrugs harder>
Being from Texas/Louisiana, that Texas one had me laughing.
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Kids! They're great, when they're not being awful.
As for my job, it's one of those things I'd mention in passing every now and then, whenever I had a particularly insightful anecdote to share.
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...Well, some anecdotes were more insightful than others.
Though, I'm extremely pleased to report that I haven't had any student-poop-related experiences this year.
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I try to tie everything I teach back to current events and/or students' lived experiences in some way. I didn't expect congress to give me quite such an on-the-nose connection, but it certainly made for a salient connection!
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Many students have asked me my age, over the years. Not a single one of them, after I told them, have ever nodded sagely and said, "Yeah, that seems right."
And good luck with your student teaching! I hope you get a great class and teacher to work with, and that what you get out of teaching is always at least as great as what you put in.
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One thing that I was surprised, but shouldn't have been, thathasn't changed, moving from Elementary back to Middle School, was the level of casual, often unthinking destruction, that children are capable of wreaking.
Also I think I broke my comma key typing that sentence send help pls
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Luckily, all the other states in the union have never had anything bad happen in them ever!
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And that was exactly the anecdote I was referring to.
Not the point you were making there of course, but "words/terms in one language that sound offensive in another language" seems like a fascinating subject in itself. Or even between versions of the same language: "fag" is probably the most famous Transatlantic example. I still remember my German teacher long ago telling us (young teens, and as mature as most young teens are) that we were allowed one giggle at the pronunciation of "Vater", after which she wouldn't indulge us.
Is the triple "s" a reference to something subtly related to the topic, or a spelling error?
If I didn't already have a low opinion of most students, I'd swear no one was that dumb.
On the plus side, I just spent a few intellectual minutes looking up the Missouri Compromise on Wikipedia. How bizarrely surreal it seems to me today that there was ever an attempt to legally "compromise" on the issue of slavery across states. What different times they were back then.
Why do I get the feeling this'll be the epitaph on humanity's gravestone?
Speaking for the rest of the world, I'm just as surprised as anyone.
As a fellow teacher, I'm pretty used to students saying, hilarious, dumb, and occasionally insightful stuff. The student complaining about the lack of warning made me laugh regardless.
A couple of mine:
I was playing house with a preschooler, and they were holding a baby doll. I told them, "you're doing a good job taking care of that baby."
The student replied, "Thanks. Their mom died in the war."
I told some middle schoolers what the sunk cost fallacy was.
One student replied, "That's why I watched every episode of One Piece."
Shout out to Pascoite for turning me on to this blog post. These are great. I wish I had been a raging commie sooner I would have been so insufferable constantly arguing with my conservative 9th grade AP World History teacher. (And actually read Howard Zinn like I was supposed to in 10th grade lol). Was already a poet and musician and creative writer though; my amazing 9th and 11th grade honors English teacher Mr. Hallstrom let me turn in like 5 different projects in song or poem form, one of which I sang and played keyboard for live in class. Wow I can still remember mostly how it goes too
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OMG the One Piece one XD