Overheard in the Classroom (or Kids These Days), vol. VI

"You slay me like a dragon."--a senior to his friend, both of whom are in the play that started rehearsals this week.

"How can you NOT know who Babar is?!"--the only white kid in the play, to the rest of the cast.

"I watch a lot of Fresh Prince and asking for a book is always the first step [to getting a date]."--our resident Playboy.


"Remember, Cancer, cartwheels, and crackers!"--one of my intro students, remarking on what we share: our astrological signs, our ability to do cartwheels and a love of carbohydrates...

"Why are you so black?"--one of my 8th graders, to his classmate, during an improvisation exercise. I assumed he was being totally offensive and then he pointed out that the scenario was that they were in a black hole.

"Don't actually be bad. Just act bad."--me to one of my special ed students. He was playing a "bad boy" in a status exercise. I'm not positive he got my joke.

This exchange happened while my intro students worked on their scenario for their final stage combat scenes, in which a plane crashes on an island and the survivors fight over the last morsels of food:
A: "I'm making it so our plane is flying to Italy."
me: "From where?"
A: "LA."
B: "No, no, LA to Boston!"
A: "There are no islands between LA and Boston!"
B: "Rhode Island! Rhode Island!"

In the special ed class today, we played "What Are You Doing?" in which a student enters the space, miming an activity. Then, another student enters and asks the first student, "What are you doing?" at which point the first student gives the second student another activity to mime. I played with the kids today, to model good examples of all parts of the game, and one of the students gave me the activity of "going pee," so I hammed it up, took my time with it, and another student entered, asked me "What are you doing?" and I made her wait...so she walked away, saying,
"I'll come back later."