Golden Nuggets

Hi All,

The Sensation and I are off for a little break, so come back and check us out after June 9th. Until then, enjoy these golden nuggets of figurative language....

Directions: Please create an original simile and a metaphor.

"You smell like trash can do-do."
"We don't need no light. Your yellow teeth be our light."
"We don't need no heater cause your hot morning breath be our heat."
"I'm single as a dollar bill."

I think we're going to need to revisit this lesson.... come on Hamster Wheel!

Dear White Teacher

“Ms. Homeskillet, you should put yo hair in a pony tail and get a big rhinestone bow. You can get you one up at Phat Ladiez Hair Supply, right next to the $3.99 shoe sto”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been to Phat Ladiez before. I probably could get a bow there.”

“WHAT?!? You been there? I didn’t think white people bought weave! You got weave Ms. H?”

“I don’t have weave Ebony, but I was with a friend who needed some hair products.”

“Woh woh woh! Wait a minute- you know black people? Like real ones?!?”

Now I know what is going through some people’s minds right now. “I can’t believe she is calling herself the ‘white teacher’” “How insensitive can she be?” Well if you are in the category of people who feel that way, you need to hear me out.

The fact of the matter is that yes, we live in a country that has a history riddled with racial conflict, and I think that the majority of Americans would agree, that while we have made significant progress in bridging the racial divide in some areas, we have a lot to accomplish before we are completely out of the woods. Quite frankly, there are kids of all races, who grow up surrounded by people that look like them and act like them, and when that is the case, they have no way of gaining the much needed cultural and racial awareness that is necessary to survive in the melting pot we call America. Now I don’t consider myself an idealist by any stretch, but I do what I can in my classroom to address this cultural knowledge gap with my students by encouraging open dialogue about racial differences. As a result, I have been entertained by a series of questions and conversations that will now be documented through my “Dear White Teacher” posts.  My students may NEVER punctuate a sentence correctly, despite my ardent efforts spinning in this hamster wheel, but they will walk away with at least some knowledge of this strange group of people known simply to them as “whities.”

Biohazard

"Mr. Sensation, do anyone here own a Biohazard suit?"


"No dear, I obviously left mine at home. Why, what's up?"


"Oh, 'cause someone needs a biohazard suit to clean up the bloody 'P-A-D' on the bathroom floor."


"Thanks for spelling that out for me."

Sleepovers

During Lunch, 5th grade student

Mini Homefry: "Mr. Sensation, can you come over here? I need to ask you something."

Sensation: "Well why can't you come over here and ask me?"

MH: "It's a personal question and I don't want other teachers to hear."

S: "Good Grief."

I walk about 15 feet away from the other teachers to talk to this girl.

MH: "Mr. Sensation, did you ever have sleepovers when you was a kid?"

S: "Yeah, sometimes, but not very often."

MH: "And did you have lots of fun at them?"

S: "Yeah, we had a good time. Why are you asking me this?"

MH: "Oh. Well how about now that you're an adult? Do you still have sleepovers? I bet they'd still be a lot of fun."

All of a sudden, it becomes clear as day to me exactly where she is going with this line of questioning...

MH: "Because I seen you and Ms. Blorgenschplatts talkin' to each other. Do you ever hug her? Is you feelin' Ms. Blorgenschplatts?"

S: "I am not talking to you any more."

MH: "But Mr. Sensation! I'm just curious. Do ya'll be havin' sleepovers together?!"

S: "I'm walking away from you."

Vocabulary Building

"Ms. Homeskillet, what the heck is a bordello?"

"Well Azannia,  it is a house of prostitution."

"You mean like a ho house? Where dey be ho-in?"

"Yes, I suppose it is like a 'ho house'."

"Yeah, I know where dey be around here, there's one on 9th street, it got dat red door."

(Jamaya chimes in, obviously eager to correct Azannia's egregious error.)

"What! Wait a minute girl, get it right. Da ho house is on 34th Street and I know cause my cuz be ho in over der."

(Homeskillet) "So class, any other questions about vocabulary?"

World Geography? Who Needs It

During a discussion about racial conflicts in America prior to Civil Rights.

 "Girl you know what I heard? Back in the day, people used to axe why black people didn't just go back to Africa. I said if that's the case, all white people should just go back to Europe or wherever dey came from. Who they fittin' to try?!"

"Wait, wait, wait a minute. That don't make no sense. If black people went back to Africa, and white people went back to Europe, they'd be going to the same place. What sense would that make!? I mean you know Europe is at the top of Africa, where all that fighting has been going on recently."

"What!? Girl that's Egypt. Don't get it twisted. Ain't you pay attention in Geography?"

Gar Fish

While reviewing for a test on Ecology

Sensation: "Alright kids, so let's do this review question. Number 45: 'Predict what might happen to other species, such as gar fish or herons, if alligators were to become extinct in the Florida Everglades.' "

A'mania: "Gar fish? Oh, I seen that movie!"
Classmate: "Girl, that's GarFIELD! You seen GarFIELD."

When White Girls Break Up

"Ms. Homeskillet, would you be sad if yo boyfriend broke up with you? Would you cry?"

 "Well LaToya, whenever you care about a person and they are no longer in your life for some reason, it normally causes some sadness, so yes I would be sad, and I would probably cry."

"That's what I thought. That's what white girls do when they break up, they cry and eat ice cream. Black girls, we break the headlights on yo mama's car."

Possess This!

Most of you probably cannot commiserate with me on this, but possessive nouns are a bitch. It's not the nouns themselves that drive me to the brink of insanity, rather it is the students' absolute neglect of using possessive nouns that makes me want to jump into a blender. There is no reason that it should take a teacher hour after grueling hour to grade a simple writing assignment, however, here at Hamster Wheel Prep, the lack of simple things like periods, apostrophes, and the correct spelling of first grade sight words, makes grading each assignment a painful, arduous journey through Nonsense City.

In an attempt to correct this, I had my seventh graders create 25 original sentences containing correctly punctuated possessive nouns. Here is a sample of what I received.

1. Annasi's eyes be very slanted like Chinese people's eyes.
2. Abyssidy's walk is very stank. I really hate it.
3. LaQueesha's lips are very big some white girls pay for their lips to look like hers (all one sentence, yes).
4. Briasia's stomach be as jolly as Santa Claus's.
5. Danayshia's favorite color is PURBLE because she think it's pretty.
6. Ashaunti's shoes are very big they be clown shoes (duh, yes that's supposed to be all one sentence).
7. My toe's are very pretty and I don't care what anyone else says about them (your toes possess something?).
8. Ms. Homeskillet's wardrobe is very nice for the kinda person she is (can you say backhanded compliment?).
9. Her baby daddy's hair be nappy and so do her babies (the babies are nappy?).
10. NaKeera's feet be dusty and crusty cause she ain't go no pedicure.

I am done grading for now, so I suppose I will continue my run on this never ending hamster wheel and contemplate how I'm ever going to make progress.

Sources of Heat

While lining up for morning assembley, I noticed that one 6th grade student had a bag with her. Bags are strictly not allowed during assemblies, so I offered to hang on to it for her. When she handed me the bag, I commented that the bag was really warm.

"Really?" she replied.

Another student discreetly turned toward her and asked, with dead seriousness, "Oh. Did you fart on it? That would make it really warm."

Apparently all I have to do the next time my hands are chilly is simply fart on them.

Once You Go Black

"Ms. Homeskillet, what do people mean when they say 'Once you go black you'll never go back.' "

"Well Lacreesha, it is a funny phrase that people use to show just how cool black people are. So cool in fact, that once you become friends with black people, or date a black person, you just can't imagine what your life was like before, and you never want to go back to it- hence the 'never go back' part."

"Ohhhh! I get it! Well then why did my mama tell her friend 'Once you go white your credit get right,'?"

Skinny People and Dogs

This conversation took place during a weekly activity hosted by the local SPCA chapter. The volunteer that leads the activity brought her 13 year old, blind, deaf, obviously vicious dog to visit the students. One student in particular, JaMarcus, had a real problem with ole’ Benjy…

“Ms. Homeskillet, you gotsta keep Benjy away from me. I’m skinny. Skinny people cain’t be around dogs.”

“Really JaMarcus, why is that?”

“Don’t you know! Since skinny people don’t have much fat on they bones, the dogs can smell they bones through their skin, and they think there is just a free bone hanging around in the air, so they BITE you. And Benjy look hoooonnngry. So I’m gonna stay over here wich you.”

Sexual Reproduction and Development

I like to plan. I try to think ahead. So I really thought that I had covered my bases when I laid out the lesson plan for Chapter 26 – Reproduction and Development. I sent a note home to parents warning them about the chapter that we were about to start and asked them to have some serious, meaningful conversations with their daughters. I had the girls watch “The Miracle of Life” for 3 days with a female teacher. I asked Ms. HomeSkillet to have "girl-talk" to them in homeroom. As a young male who teaches all female students, I am always walking on eggshells.

What I didn’t realize was that when you’re walking though a minefield, disarming 5 or 6 mines just isn’t going to cut it.

We started out by doing an activity. I handed each student a notecard and told them that they had 5 minutes to get 3 other people to sign their card. Before the activity, I had taken one girl aside and asked her to refuse to participate – I had decided to have her represent an abstinent person. I had also written a red dot on the back of one of the notecards – this would represent a person that started with an STD.

The girls eagerly rose from their seats…”Sign mines [sic]! Sign mines!”
“Wait, why isn’t you doing the activity?”, they asked my accomplice.
“I just don’t feel like it, okay?”

By the third signature, everyone in the class had “caught” the STD. When I revealed that ally had been modeling an “abstinent” person by simply choosing not to participate, the girls started giggling… “Not a good choice for the ‘abstinent’ girl,”, one classmate snickered.

Detention city. I knew that things would only get worse from there.

Over the course of the chapter I was asked a multitude of hilarious questions, but here is a sampler:

“So do cows be comin’ outta of their mom’s butts? How ‘bout horses?”

“How do snakes have sex? They don’t have hands to grab on to nothin’.”

Q: “What happens if sperm lands on a girl’s mouth?”
A: “Ask Ms. HomeSkillet.”

(written on a note that was handed to me)
“What makes our Butox [sic] different than males? Is it just genes?”

“Can you break your vagina when you have a baby?”

“Can twins have two different fathers? Like if a sperm fertilize an egg, and a different sperm fertilize another egg in the same mom, could they have different dad’s? Cause that’s what happened on Maury.”

Rotten Meat and Poverty

As the clock strikes 7:30 a.m., the bell rings indicating it is time for morning assembly. I gather my students and get them ready to go, when one student looks at another student with a disgusted look on her face and exclaims:

"Ewww! Girl it stank out here. It smells like rotten meat and poverty!"

Sperm on the Mouth

Student asks a question regarding sperm. The conversation went like this:
"Ms.______, what happens when sperm gets on a girl's mouth?"
"Well, the girl gets zits, HUGE zits, that are so big they need to be surgically removed."
"Wait a minute....WHAT! Zits AND surgery! Oh no, we cain't be havin that. They got the wrong one. Ain't gonna be no sperm on this mouth."
"Good decision, at least for now..."

Exert Some Force

On learning about forces:

“I exert a force on my thighs when I do the ‘Clap them Thighs’. Check the youtube video, Mr. Sensation.”

Oh. I found the youtube video, alright.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tQWK9k4rA

-An astute 5th Grade Student