Student Mischief

I am taking a break from attempting to write my Europe blogs and have compiled a few student stories.

This is due to the fact that a student stuck his finger in my mouth today. I believe that he was either attempting to poke me in the cheek or was seeing how long it would take for me to notice that his finger was hovering near my face, but when I turned my head, his finger went directly into my mouth. I immediately said, "Your finger just went IN MY MOUTH!" Bleck. But he didn't seem to understand why it was a problem.

Yes, I did laugh a little bit.

I will number the stories for a clear separation. Some of these I posted on facebook, others I am just compiling now.

1. A couple months ago, one of my third graders had a snack. They were these cracker sticks and they had a (extremely) spicy powder to put on them, which was similar to a ramen packet. My student, who was quite small and adorable and difficult to get angry with, said, "Teacher, smell this!" and put it in my face. The packet exploded and went straight into my eyeballs.

I don't know how many of you have had spicy ramen powder in your eyeballs, but I can tell you that you do not know true pain until it has happened to you. I clapped my hands over my eyes. The following conversation ensued:

Student: "Teacher! You're crying!"
Me: I am not! AHHHH
Student: You are! There's water coming from your eyes!
Me: OWWWWW
*Runs to bathroom. Most female students follow*
Students: Can you see!? Are you ok?
Me: OWWWWWWWW

I banned that snack from my class after that. They're also not allowed to have ramen, so it fit into the same category.

2. I also had to ban the song, "What Does the Fox Say?" because I heard it at least 15 times a day. I also banned any words said to the tune of "What does the Fox Say?"

3. The other day, I closed the door after break time. My students were about to take a test. One of my students was looking at me, with an incredibly concerned look on his face. I asked him what was wrong.

He said, and I quote, "Teacher, I really need to fart."

I sent him to the bathroom immediately. Mostly because I know that he farted in humongous proportions in another teachers class. And in my class a few days earlier. As the other teacher described, "It went on for several seconds, ending on a final high note" which made me maturely laugh out loud.

I also had to teach the word "flatulence," which I tried and failed to teach without laughing as hard as my students. I'm so mature.

4. This same student asked me a question the other day, but unfortunately timed it just as I shushed the computer for making an annoying sound. So the conversation went like this:

Student: Teacher?
Me: SHUSHHHHHH
*long pause*
Me: I'm sorry. That shush was not for you.

Luckily, the student thought it was quite funny, as did another girl in the class.

5. The other day, our topic for the day was chimeras. One of the listening passages talked about Chinese researchers tried to make a human-cow chimera. One of my students asked, "Would it look like a human but only be able to 'moo?'" After he asked it, I imagined a person who would only be able to moo. I said "Moo" and then started laughing hysterically. The student who asked the question also laughed hysterically. None of the students heard his question, so all they saw was me say "moo" and then erupt in laughter for no reason. They laughed at my laughing. I'm sure they thought I was crazy until I explained the situation.

6. At the moment, I am teaching students "For Whom the Bell Tolls," which, by the way, is horrible. It is horrible for several reasons, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have to teach it to students who are learning English as their second language and the language is rather difficult for them.

And I hate Ernest Hemingway.

There is a hotel in the book called Hotel Gaylord. I can tell you I did not expect the comment, "Why is it called Hotel Gaylord?"

Gaylord is a strange name.

Also, I hate Ernest Hemingway.

I love reading and read constantly, but good heavens that book is boring. Luckily, we will be reading "The Book Thief" soon, which I love and we can actually enjoy together.

7. While teaching essay writing:

Me: Where do you explain your thesis? In the introduction or body paragraphs? 

Student: Librarian
*all students laugh
Me: librarian?
Student: yes librarian.
Me: someone who works in a library?
Student: yes...
Me: I think you misunderstood my question.

8. I had a student misspell "poor" as "poop" several times throughout an essay.

 Here is an excerpt, grammar mistakes not edited:
"You can help poop people by giving them relieves. If you do that, poop people will be able to survive from disease or hunger. This makes both you and poop people to become happy."

Also, a student wrote, "BOOB!" instead of "BOOM!" on a poster. 

Also, I accidentally mixed the words "Bell" and "food" together when discussing Pavlov's Theory and said, "When they ring the boob..." One of my girl students noticed and was dying of laughter.

9. I have a specific student at the moment who constantly whines and is a bit of a tattletale. And by a bit, he tattles his tales approximately 400 times a day. He's been in my class now three terms in a row. I have many stories I could tell. This is one:

He made dramatic noises leaning down to pick something up. I then saw him drop his eraser on the floor from a height of about an inch just so he could pick it up while he was sighing dramatically. Aka he was fake dropping his eraser.

When asked about fake dropping his eraser, he looked surprised but fully admitted it.

I won't go into detail about other things he has done, but I can just tell you this: It is WAY more disruptive to have a student yell, "Be quiet!" to another student than the other student ever was when they were talking a bit. Also, I have found myself saying a few times (a minute), "I am the teacher. I will handle the discipline." Or something similar.  

10. Student talking to me: Ok baby mama!
Me: I don't think you understand what that means.

11. I taught a World History class for 6 months, which was a lot of fun. We did a term-long competition where they could bring in something about the days' topic to help everyone get interested in the topic, ranging from videos, articles, writing a play, pictures, books etc. Sometimes the videos they bring are boring (a video about rocks which was narrated by someone who seemed to be 200 years old), sometimes funny and informative (look up the Crash Course in History channel on you tube), or just funny (Horrible Histories clips). One time the student didn't watch the video and it zoomed in on a specific part of Michelangelo's David statue and the student was mortified.

On bubonic plague day, one of my students brought this gem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZy6XilXDZQ

A song about the Bubonic plague to the tune of Hollaback Girl... Watch it to the point they start spelling. (This plague is Bubonic. B-U-B-O-N-I-C)

12. My students discovered I had Snapchat and wanted to see what effects there were. This was the result:

I am quite sure that there have been many other funny stories, but I am out for the moment. I will post more as I remember them!