Student Quotes V

Last week, I was feeling sentimental about the last few weeks of school. I almost didn't want to say goodbye to my freshmen, because for the most part, they've grown on me. I've come to love them, and I truly enjoy waking up each morning and coming to work. This week, however, is a whole other story. I left school on Tuesday fuming, and simply feeling thankful that 7th period is the last class of the day, because I surely could not have faced another class after that one. The kids are starting to get restless, which I get, but if there's any time that they need to be paying attention, it's now, because so many of their grades are resting on the final exam. That being said, some of my students have continued to do good work, or at the very least, they've done their work. Which is more than I can say for others.

One of my most reluctant students took the time to draw this for his advertisement project

Picking up hot chicks - quite the selling point

10. Okay, this one didn't actually come from any of my students. They are the Pre-AP students of the teacher with whom I share a classroom. They were in the classroom during lunch, discussing a project they were required to complete. They all started throwing out ideas, but they realized they were going to have a hard time finding a time when they could all get together and work. One excitedly said, "We can Google-hangout!" If that doesn't epitomize this generation, I don't know what does.
9. It's hard to read Romeo and Juliet without talking about the ... sexual innuendos. They're prevalent throughout the entire play, and unlike me when I was a freshman in high school, my students are all over them. Mercutio, in particular, is one dirty, dirty boy. When I asked my students to pick a character for whom they would create tweets, one student asked, "Who's that dude that's always making them sex jokes? I want to be him!"
8. Reading Romeo and Juliet aloud absolutely crashed and burned with my academic freshman. The one day I had them act out the parts was the first and last day I had them do that. Instead, I have opted to show the play version of Romeo and Juliet, featuring Orlando Bloom as Romeo. I told the class, "Romeo is played by Orlando Bloom." A student asked, "Oh, that's like Corbin Blue from High School Musical, right?" Maybe I need to work on my enunciation.
7. I told one of my students to work on his warm-up, and that doesn't mean taking selfies on SnapChat. One astounded student asked, "How do YOU know about SnapChat?" One student came to my rescue(?) saying, "It's not like she's 80 years old."
6. One student was shocked that Romeo died for Juliet, scoffing, "Ugh, I would never die for a female." This was also the student who waltzed in one Monday bragging that he saw 50 Shades of Grey with one girl on each arm.
5. We are beginning to review for the vocabulary portion of our final exam, and one of our vocabulary words is trespass. In giving them an example of trespassing, I asked them if they had ever toilet papered anyone's house when they were younger. I received a very honest response: "Only white people did that, Miss." Fair enough. Sometimes I wonder why our parents let us waste perfectly good toilet paper.
4. We've been reading Romeo and Juliet for at least the past three weeks of school, and we talked about it even before that. Just the other day I had a student ask me, "What's Romeo and Juliet? I was only here Thursday of last week." Maybe if you stayed awake long enough to know that we started reading it much before last week.
3. As I mentioned above, we had the students come up with tweets from the perspective of a character in Romeo and Juliet. Prior to assigning this project, we had a whole discussion about Twitter. That was probably the most engaged some of them have been all year. Anyway, I asked, "What's the difference between Twitter and Instagram?" I was looking for something about words vs. images, but I got, "Old people use Instagram." Noted.
2. I'm not sure if you are aware, but evidently our own Waka Flocka Flame is planning to run for President. I was once again reminded why we have a voting age (although, none of my students are likely to pull a Breakfast Club), when a student asked, "Miss, are you going to vote for Waka Flocka Flame?" I'm counting down the days, really.
1. Remember when Ebola was a thing? It used to be the talk of the school, but it's not as common to hear an Ebola reference these days. So I couldn't help but (probably inappropriately) laugh when a student showed me a picture and said, "When bae has Ebola, but you still love her." That's commitment if I've ever heard it.

I mean, good try though

And in addition to a slew of student quotes, I've got a whole note on my phone dedicated to hilarious teacher quotes. Because we've been in state testing mode this past month or so, I've been able to spend some extended time with different groups of teachers as we savor our time spent away from the excitement that is watching kids bubble in answers on a scantron. The good news is that the people I work with are absolutely hilarious. They are some of the most genuine people I have ever met, and though I don't love state testing, I'll look on the bright side and remain thankful that I got the opportunity to spend some extended time with some of my third-floor family. They're much cooler than I originally gave them credit for. But I'm not sure all of the teacher quotes I've collected are fitnessandfroyo appropriate, so I'll save those for the Twitter world.

Be sure and check back tomorrow for another round of Things I'm Loving!