The Conversation

Thursday. Eighth grade math, special day class. Eighth period. 

To start every class, Mr. R has them do "Good Things". This is special ed, so the classes are small, so each student gets a turn. 

When it was Alonzo's turn, all I heard was something about going on a cruise. Well, that's cool. Only, as Alonzo continued speaking, the explanation went into Hantavirus and something about bombing the ship... 

Eighth graders... 

We moved on from Alonzo and finished Good Things, but when it was time for them to start working on their math, Alonzo circled back to Hantavirus. 

He had all the questions. I have not been following the news. I heard part of a report in passing about a cruise ship and Hantavirus, and that's really all I know. I suppose I could have looked this up, but they had math to work on, and I wasn't in the mood to humor Alonzo with this random topic. 

Alonzo? He found other topics to discuss with his classmates. Because I was of a mind to, I listed as many of the topics as I could for their teacher as they happened. As the topic changed, I added to the list. The list wasn't exhaustive, though, as some things were said in passing that I felt didn't merit inclusion on the list, and some things I just didn't get. 

So, what do eighth grade boys discuss when they should be doing math? 

• Hantavirus: Alonzo really couldn't let this go.
• History class assignment roles: apparently their history teacher had assigned them roles for some Civil War project. One boy was a spy. One boy was a slave. And the third boy's role was kind of unclear. There was a long conversation about how they liked/did not like their roles and how things got assigned.
• McDonald's: this was a weird ramble about food that turned into some VR chat that was McDonald's based. I was again unclear on what exactly they were talking about. 
• Tigger: yes, the tiger in Winnie the Pooh. This was more a rhyming thing where they did go there (starts with N...), but they were also wondering if they got the correct name for the tiger in Winnie the Pooh. 
• TikTok Challenges: they went from Tide Pods to a bunch I'd never heard of. 
• Mall food: food is always a popular topic. It ended up being a thing about various things they could get, and then Alonzo said he could also get food when he went to the mall for something else. Somehow this segued into how Alonzo needed to go to the bookstore to pick up a new book coming out (the kiddos were amazingly well-read). 
• Fake dice: they acted like they were playing craps. Without dice. For about a minute. 
• "Why are you rubbing your belly?" He was not rubbing his belly. 
• Movies: Hoppers and Project Hail Mary. They liked both. 
• Someone started whistling.
• "Jesse called some girl 'slave'", which then turned into Alonzo saying that he could say all sorts of career-ruining things about Jesse. 
• Alonzo said that some teacher said that because he did something with his thumbs, that he was double jointed.
• Alonzo pulled out some money and a receipt he had. The receipt got passed around. The money was counted. (After they left, I found a nickel on the floor.) 
• Somehow the money led to them talking about various gum flavors. Mostly listing and stating whether they liked them.
• Video games: a brief mention of some games they liked.
• They circled back to Tigger and words that rhyme with it.
• Kool-Aid pickles: and then pickles in general. 
• Six... seven... Yes, sadly, that's still a thing, and it just pops up at random times.
• And then some sidetrack into Zuckerberg. Why? I have no idea.

So, you won't be surprised that I rated the class as "some made better use of their time than others" and that I doubted they had finished their assignments. Because, seriously? 

Blocker

Today's post is NSFW. Apologies. I try to keep things PG around here, but I really want to tell you about this... 

"That's not what that means."

It was a rather weird Monday where I ended up covering four different classes. Fourth period it was a US history class. They were supposed to be perusing a chapter on the Cold War.

(It was next door to the class I covered the week before spring break.)

But if they were on task, this wouldn't be a very interesting post.

One girl explained to another the definition of the term "cockblocker". Or, at least, she thought it was the definition.

It was a rather literal interpretation, involving smacking/slapping a certain part of the male anatomy.

That's where I chimed in. I jump into student conversations when misinformation is being perpetuated.

"That's what it says on Urban Dictionary. I took a screenshot. Want to see?" she replied.

I did not. "Well, then Urban Dictionary is wrong." 

I trust Urban Dictionary, so I was surprised. I thought the term was fairly well-known.

Normally I would just shut this whole thing down, and I did, but I first provided the actual definition. Because they are 16 or 17 years old, and they really shouldn't get any older thinking what she said was true. (If this had been a middle school class, this whole thing would have gone very, very differently.)

Discussion finished, I pulled out my calendar to update. (I keep track of what classes I cover.)

"Are you writing this down?"

The girl then put on a brave face. She informed me that Mr. T wouldn't be surprised, and he wouldn't even need her name as he would know it originated from her.

(I hadn't planned on mentioning it, but since she asked, I realized Mr. T might enjoy the humor of the situation, so I did then make a point of including it in the note. Later.)

After school, I checked Urban Dictionary. I could not find the definition she cited. I did find several iterations of the correct definition. Check it out.