Learn Me Gooder (7 page)
Authors: John Pearson
Many of the wrong answers chosen didn’t even make sense mathematically. A boy with only 17 apples somehow gave 34 apples to a friend. A 24 page comic book will take 36 days to read. 56 boys and 37 girls were selling popcorn, yet the total number of kids was only 19. I’m sure that if 21 had been an answer choice for that one, 50% of my kids would have chosen it.
Then there were the questions that make me despise the BM-producers. There were two division questions, when we clearly haven’t even introduced the concept yet. There was even one question that I had to create an algebraic system of equations to solve – on a third grade test!!
And this little turd of diabolical cruelty:
“Tommy is taking folklorien class. His lesson begins at the time shown on the clock below. What time does Tommy’s folklorien class begin?”
FOLKLORIEN??!!?? What the folklorien is a folklorien???
The question just required the kids to read an analog clock, but instead, it totally hung them up on a word that hasn’t been used, outside of Renaissance Fairs, for a couple of centuries!
The kids’ mistakes on the science test were much more fun to read. By “fun,” I of course mean “depressing.”
The bubble gum hypothesis question did indeed show up on the test, and I was happy that we had performed it in advance so the kids would be prepared. But then I checked the tests and saw that only half the kids got it right. Gwenn chose “the mass of the bubble gum will change color.”
The majority of my kids decided that a short-sleeve shirt and sandals would be the best attire for an outdoors science investigation. Twelve children would use a ruler or a stopwatch to measure the temperature of melting chocolate. Six of my students believe that a magnet can attract a cardboard box. Most confounding of all was a question that asked which action would be CORRECT to do during an investigation, where three of my students, I kid you not, chose “Decide not to tell your teacher about a small cut on your finger.”
Clearly, we have a lot of work to do this year. I suppose the benchmarks did serve some purpose after all, in much the same way that a car’s gas gauge shows when the tank is empty. Obviously, we need to look more closely at test strategies. Because if we have another set of BMs like this, I might just smash my folklorien in anger.
Later,
Ben Shmarkstink
Let me answer your questions about the science BM in the order that you asked.
1) Ascot and speedo was NOT one of the answer choices.
2) It shouldn’t matter if the ruler was metric or customary – it won’t measure temperature!
3) The question never said there was a hunk of iron inside the cardboard box.
4) We don’t (officially) teach the “suck it up” mentality here, so nobody should have chosen that answer.
Enjoy your trip to New York! I know that might be hard to do since most of your time will be spent in meetings, AND because you’ll be with Larry and Philby. But if you get a chance, try to see Mount Rushmore. And the Golden Gate Bridge. And whatever else might be up in that area.
OK, I realize now that Isabel might not really have been geographically-challenged when she told me she was moving to Miami last week; she might have been making a joke. Nah, she was confused.
Moving from confused to dazed, the funniest thing happened this morning. On my way from the office to pick up my kids, I stopped to use one of the student bathrooms, which is usually empty at that time of the morning. Today, however, I was not alone.
I was standing at one of the urinals, doing my business when this little kindergartener walked in and went to the one right next to me. Clearly, no one has ever explained to him the rules of male restroom etiquette.
I’ve seen this kid before and taken notice because he’s short even by kindergarten standards. I’d be surprised if he was 3 feet tall.
It all happened very quickly. The kid stepped up and yanked his pants down around his ankles. He couldn’t have peed more than two drops and he was done. Then he sneezed.
Some combination of the sneeze, the lowered pants, and the simultaneous fart knocked the kid down. He actually fell to the floor, sort of backwards and sideways.
The poor kid was rolling around, trying to right himself like a turtle that’s been flipped over, and all I could do was try my very best not to bust a gut from laughing.
I eventually had to reach down, pick the kid up, and get him set upright once again. I asked if he was OK (still fighting back giggles), but he didn’t seem to hear me. He looked like a flash-bang grenade had been set off in front of him, and he swayed drunkenly on his feet with a dazed look on his face. Then suddenly he snapped out of it. He pulled up his pants, yelled, “BYE!” and made a beeline for the door.
“You might want to wash your… OK then, never mind,” I trailed off as he disappeared.
The rest of my day was pretty uneventful, but the events of the morning reminded me of something that I don’t think I told you about last week.
Last Tuesday, Cerulean’s mother came up to the school to deliver a doctor’s note.
Cerulean is a large girl who's just not very bright and who takes so many bathroom breaks that we’ve had to call home, concerned. Thus, the doctor’s note. It made for a very interesting read, though some of the technical jargon was a bit over my head.
“Functional voiding disturbance??!!?” What on earth is that? While I’m sure Dave Barry would say that would make a great name for a rock band, it sounds to me like one of those dire side effects that are always listed with prescription medication.
“Possible side effects of Drugzinol include cotton mouth, snow blindness, explosive flatulence, and functional voiding disturbance.”
I also noticed that we are asked to encourage Cerulean to stay as long as it takes her to completely empty her bladder. I guess whenever she’s using the bathroom, I should stand outside the door with pom-poms, cheering, “Push it out, push it out, WAAAAAY out!”
Truly, I don’t begrudge someone an actual medical issue. But Cerulean is the kind of girl who will most definitely take advantage of this. She was in Mrs. Bird’s room when the note was delivered, and coincidentally enough, she needed to use the bathroom as soon as her mother had left. It wasn’t even 8:30! Wednesday, she raised her hand to ask me around 2:00, and she got up and slowly walked past the other kids, grinning and smirking at them like she was on her way to accept the crown for prom queen.
There’s already another girl in my afternoon class, Temperance, who presented a similar doctor’s note at the beginning of the year. So each afternoon, it’s become a contest to see which of them will ask first. Not which one will ask – which one will ask FIRST. This afternoon, after both of them had gone and returned, Tyler told me that he needed to go. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have a doctor’s note, so his request was denied. Fortunately for me, he didn’t break wind and blow himself out of his chair. I think that would have trumped any doctor’s note.
Talk to you later,
Gus T. Kidd
OK, you are either a genius or the craziest fruitcake on the planet. It’s not enough that you worked the phrase “functional voiding disturbance” into conversation during your customer meeting yesterday, but you did it THREE TIMES???
The funniest part about that (or the saddest maybe) is that your clients just nodded their heads as if they knew what you were talking about. I guess it does sound like a legitimate semi-conductor malfunction. Still, I would have loved to have been there to see Larry’s and Philby’s reactions as you introduced the newest jargon into play.
Get your customers to start using that term in their correspondence with you, and drinks are on me next time we hang out.
One of my kids used a new term today, but I don’t think he was just being a smart-alec. I had a conversation with Kevin this morning that introduced me to the brand new word AND made me fearful of ever having children in this lifetime.
After finishing his problem of the day, Kevin (AKA Anferny) called me over to tell me that he had a football game coming up on Friday night. I made a little small talk with him, asking how he liked football and what position he played. He then told me that they were playing a team called the Dragons.
I said, “Oooh, they sound dangerous. What’s the name of YOUR team?”
He replied, “The Mancocks.”
While a circuit within my brain suddenly burst into flame and began to smoke, my mouth filled in as best it could. Trying to relate it to the unfortunately chosen South Carolina mascot, I asked, “Oh, is that a type of bird?”
Kevin responded, “No, it’s just a name my coach likes.”
“And has your coach registered with the proper authorities yet?” That’s what I might have asked if I didn’t have such tremendous self-control. Instead, I wittily responded, “Ahhhh.”
Later in the day, when I had a free moment during my planning period, I looked up “mancock” online. After skimming past forty or so entries for adult sites that might get me fired just for reading the web addresses, I finally found one that defined a mancock as “a type of birch bark container used to store rice in some villages.”
Poor fire-breathing, scaly Dragons… You don’t stand a chance against the wooden, grain-filled Mancocks.
I’ll admit, that word haunted me for the entire morning. But it was put out of my mind for a while by another incident right before lunch.
About fifteen minutes before picking the kids up from the gym, I walked up to the office to check my mailbox. As I passed the cafeteria, where all of the kindergarten kids were filing in to have their lunch, I heard a sudden wailing. In the space of one footstep, a mighty debate that Gollum himself would have been proud of raged inside my mind.
“Do I stop and render assistance?”
“No, it’s kindergarten, let them handle it. Don’t get involved.”
“Well, I’ve already glanced at the scene of the crime, I shouldn’t just keep walking.”
“You can always say you thought the screeching was coming from a rabid possum loose in the cafeteria.”
“Oh hey, it’s the little kid who sneezed/farted and blew himself down in the bathroom. I wonder why he continues to scream like somebody’s attached electrodes to his groin?”
In the end, I forced myself to respect the Good Samaritan Law (you can’t witness an accident and drive on past without checking on the situation), and I went over to see what was going on. A small crowd of kids was gathered around my tiny friend, who was writhing on the floor and showing no signs of lowering the volume on his shrieks. I zeroed in on the calmest looking kid, a boy who looked like he was annoyed that the lunch line had come to a halt, and I asked him to tell me what had happened. The boy pointed down at the kid on the ground and said, “He hit me.”
Yeah, that’s usually the response when you hit someone, you keel over and scream incessantly. After a few minutes of interrogation, I discovered that the boy on the ground had slapped the other boy on the butt, so THAT boy turned around and kicked the first kid in the junk. Hard, judging by his continued caterwauling.
It’s a shame that he didn’t add, “It’s for science,” because then I would have felt justified in letting it go. Instead, I had to wait for a kindergarten teacher to show up and take control. When she asked what happened, I told her that the poor little guy got kicked in the mancock.
Her eyes widened, but all she said was, “Oh!” So I added, “Also, I think he may have a functional voiding disturbance.”
OK, so you’re not the only one who’s a genius/crazy fruitcake.
Yours truly,
John Mancock
I don’t care if one definition of mancock is “the awesomest source of awesomeness in the universe” – you don’t name a Pee Wee football team something so close to something so anatomically private! I’m worried about the league Kevin is playing in. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if his next matchups are against the Titmouses, the Spotted Dicks, and the Golden Taints.
Ugh. Now I feel the need to take a shower again. Let’s move off of weird team names and on to weird kids.
I have a little girl in my class this year, Shelly, who doesn’t quite seem all there. She’s a sweet enough little girl, and so far, she appears to be doing all right academically. However, there are frequently times when I talk to her face to face, and I can tell that the light is on, but nobody’s home.
One major issue, she ALWAYS calls me “Miss Woodson.” She’s not being malicious or trying to cut me down, she just feels for some reason that that’s what she should call me. When I try to explain to her that I am a man, and therefore I should be addressed as “Mister,” she gets a puzzled look on her face, as if I was telling her that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy were not real.
I thought for a while that perhaps Shelly called everyone Miss and was completely unfamiliar with any other prefix. But that was disproven a couple of days into the school year. The art teacher and I were monitoring the drop-off zone out in front of the school when Shelly’s aunt pulled up and let her out. Shelly ran past us yelling, “Good morning, Mister Vann! Good morning, Miss Woodson!!”
Maybe it’s just me, though I do consider myself to be somewhat manly looking. I mean, my Adam’s apple is as prominent as the next guy’s, and I rock a mean three-day stubble. I don’t think that she actually views me as a female. So I’m at a loss as to why she can’t understand why I wouldn’t be MISTER Woodson.
