Friday Field Notes: PINKY

Every week I teach approximately 160 kids. They say some ridiculous things. I write them down as accurately and timely as possible, on tiny scraps of paper, then on Fridays I compile the best lines into these weekly Friday Field Notes.

Enjoy. I certainly do.

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Grade 1/2

One little dude is having trouble doing up the button on his snowpants.

Me: Dude! Stop eating cupcakes! You won’t be able to do this up at all anymore!J: I brushed my teeth last night, but that doesn’t keep your stomach clean. But the stuff you put in your mouth goes down and back up.
Me: Oh, mouthwash? No, it doesn’t.
J: …..Oh. But it doesn’t keep your stomach clean.

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J and M are the kings of walking up to me, telling me a random fact, and walking away immediately.

J: Paralyzed means you’re frozen.

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C: I’ve been to London. There are SO MANY J-walkers.

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C: My eyes are basil. Sometimes they are blue, sometimes green.

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M: Pink eye is when someone farts in your face.

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J: Even the ball went faster than my eyes. I didn’t get it. I got lost. (explaining why he didn’t catch a ball)

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In the middle of a math lesson.

M: Did you know freezies are just ice with juice?

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Me: What did you do on the weekend?
A: I got a new couch. It’s big.
T: I was watching How to Eat Fried Worms, and then my brother came in and made me change it to the Talking Dead.

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L: I got germs in my throat.

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M: In Serbia, they don’t do cheese touch. All of the movies there are just old and no colour.

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C: Babies can’t cook!

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M: Know what the Japanese middle finger is? PINKY.

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M: When I swallow my spit, it makes my heart feel all giggly.
(later)
M: I don’t think it’s my heart. It’s the giggly bones inside me.

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O: This is going to be a joke. A sea serpent wears underwear!

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M (out of breath from running back from the bathroom): T is trying as hard as he can to pee, but it’s not working.

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I recently got my hair cut, and I now have bangs. I didn’t think it was that drastic of a change, but apparently it rocked the worlds of all of the children I teach. I had to dedicate the first 5 minutes of every class discussing my bangs. It was an exhausting couple of days. What follows are some of the comments they made about my bangs (there were a LOT of them).

“You look weird.”

“You look like a totally different person.”

“I don’t know who you are.”

“Why would you do that?”

Grade 1:
A: How did you get it longer right there?
Me: I didn’t. I cut it.
(confused looks)
J: But. It’s longer.
Me (confused): No, it’s not. I CUT it. My hair is a little bit shorter.
G (pointing to my bangs): You made it LONGER here.
O: Yeah, I thought you didn’t have bangs!
Me: You cut your hair into bangs.
(confused looks)
B: But….it’s longer right there.
Me: OOooooooh. (I had to do a demonstration with a girl with no bangs about how the hair dresser combs the hair at the front forward, then cuts them into bangs. They thought I had magically grown extra hair where my bangs started)

Grade 5
As I’m leaving the classroom, one of the girls leans over and whispers, “KEEP YOUR BANGS SAFE.”

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Teacher: I wonder how many kids are going to come to school with bangs.

The next day:
Grade 1
O: My mom won’t let me have bangs.
Her teacher: Well, when you’re an adult, you can do your hair however you want.
M: I want to be an adult. You can do anything.
S: Yeah, like you can go to Disney World whenever you want.
Me: Well no, you have to have the money for it, and it’s expensive. You can’t do whatever you want. You still have responsibilities.
G: But it’s better.
Me: There are good things about being a kid and good things about being an adult.
I: But you get to do so many good things as an adult.
Me: Yup. You can even have chips for dinner if you want.
All of them: GASP! REALLY?
Me: Yes (recovering quickly), but you know how when you’re a kid you can make good choices and bad choices? When you’re an adult, you get to make more choices, but some are still bad. Do you think it’s a good or bad choice to eat chips for dinner?
Them: Baaaaad.
Me: Right!
S: Do you eat chips for dinner?
Me: …….uh. No.

(I totally lied to the kids, you guys.)