What is wrong with this picture? Nothing, if you are okay with getting fired and working ten-year-olds into a foaming fury of too many chicken nugget hormones!
Yeah, man, we’re awesome educators! We are making poetry come alive by using contemporary song lyrics. If we made the assignment “Find the hidden f-bomb,” that would be our number one engaging lesson of the school year; the one that students would talk about fondly in the future (seeing as how we don’t have field trips anymore). “Remember when Ms. Peachy had us read the song lyrics that said ‘f—ed up?’ That was the best day ever.” Alas, not today, young Turk. Not today. Because, by the grace of God, Ms. Peachy read the words before you had a chance to.
I have never personally heard the song, “Gym Class Heroes,” but you can bet I’m going to be looking it up real soon now. The title alone, for me, is hilarious, as our gym is host, primarily, to impressive brawls, second only to the cafeteria, where one needs only to whisper the words, “You’re dirty,” to set off a virtual West Side Story scene, sans pretty music and dancing. Heroes abound.
Amidst the knock-down drag outs and the descriptive language exploration, my most velcro-like student asked me, over and over, to send him to the nurse because his lips hurt. Just in case you don’t know, we teachers do try to stick to a blood/puke policy when it comes to the nurse (although we cave when we are really really tired of a certain kid’s pleading. “Just go!”). Rarely do we send a lip-related emergency, especially an invisible one. “Feel it!” he implores. ”
“I am not going to feel your lip!”
“No, it is below my lip!” Excellent use of the concept of “below” for our English language learner.
“I am not going to feel below your lip. Stop asking me. Tell your family you need some chap stick.” This is a risky proposition when you take into account the fact that this student questioned me when he saw me putting on lipstick one day.
My expert explanation: “It’s lipstick. So my lips don’t fall off.”
“But you are a MOTHER!” He was sort of perplexed in a horrified way. Apparently, in his culture, one’s lipstick years are behind one when childbearing sets in.
Still, when he left school at the end of the day, he assured me that he would be getting some lipstick. I gently reminded him that he would prefer chap stick. Thumbs up all around.
