Just a few choice seventh grade lines, sort of Art Linkletter stylie.
From Wednesday’s vocabulary pretest:
1. The sub was slow to realize when something was ____; he thought everything was fine. a) forlorn b) amiss c) apathetic d) earnest e) crestfallen
Now I’ve used this one before, and I can’t remember anyone not knowing I meant substitute teacher. But this year…
“On number one, you mean sandwich, right?”
“Sandwich? What?”
“Sub. You mean like sub sandwich?”
“Ummm. No. Substitute. Guest teacher.” (Pounding head on podium.)
Now I hear other murmurings:
“I thought it was submarine…You know, like they didn’t know it was leaking or something.”
From Friday’s Mental Floss:
Sid and Nancy were comparing information about their siblings. At one point Sid said, “My older brother was born on the Fourth of July. I remember the day because I was watching the fireworks.” Nancy immediately knew it was a lie. How did she know?
The Mental Floss really frustrates some of them. In a good way. There are some who almost never get any right (there’s no penalty for guessing; it’s all extra credit), but most of them get this one. Most of them. “Micah” was waving his arms around (along with everybody else) when I asked for volunteers on this one. He’s one of the ones that don’t get too many right, so I thought I’d let him get one.
“They don’t allow fireworks next to hospitals.”
A roar of laughter. And this is the friendly and supportive class.
“Wait, I know. He was in his mother’s stomach and she couldn’t have…and so she…wait…”
“Micah. It says older brother. So his younger sister couldn’t have…”
“I don’t know, I don’t have an older brother.”
On Thursday in the friendly class, the subject of spanking came up. We are reading Tom Sawyer after all, with a schoolmaster who has a rack of switches on the wall, and a whole buncha ways to say hit. So I asked them how many of them had been spanked. I usually don’t get more than a 25% positive response to that question. But surprisingly, in my friendliest class, at least 3/4 of the hands went up. Even Politeness Girl. I was shocked. So was the class.
“We’re just having trouble imagining you doing anything that would get you spanked. And I can’t picture you doing your “Yay!” that we love so much (she says “Yay!” to everything) at the prospect of getting spanked. Wait a minute. It must have worked!”
Sheepishly, “Yes.”
