Black, white, and neon

In an 8th grade Texas history class the discussion was on the political spectrum. The teacher explained the differences between left and right winged views on defense, taxes, and government. The class was not actively participating in the discussion so to make sure everyone had an understanding of the topic at hand the teacher asks, "can anyone give me an example of another type of spectrum you have heard about before?" My first thought was that someone would think back to art class and make a comment about the color spectrum. Then one girl raised her hand and said, "my mom teaches yoga class at spectrum."

After the discussion had moved to the far right Neo-Nazi movement another student raised his hand and asked if "Neo" meant that the Nazis wore bright colors.

Have you ever been in love?

In a high school debate class the students were given topics to choose from for a one minute impromptu speech. The topics were actually written by the students on index cards during the previous class. The teacher asked me to grade their speeches. When one male student read his topic "have you ever been in love?" out loud, the class in unison gave a drawn out, sarcastic "AWWWWW". The student then began his one minute speech:

"Most of you who know me know that my girlfriend is in this class. We are not in love. Our relationship is mostly physical. We don't talk much, and there is no passion in our relationship. I have never even taken her out on an actual date. I dont know if I believe in this whole "love" thing. Sure I love my mom, and I love my family. But no, I have never been in love."

I gave him a 7.

Changing Behavior

In a different class, in a school district that will remain nameless, one student on the topic of "setting a goal to change an aspect of your behavior" wrote the following on his essay:


word for word, misspelling and all...


My goal for my behavior is to stop being a drug attic (yes he wrote attic) stop poppin bars and smokin this legal weed crap just so it wont come out on my drug test. I want to be sobar (we all like being sobar) and live in reality but I can't, (nice use of comma)I can't stop. Maybe one day my body won't want it anymore and I'll live it up to the real world thats my goal.

I appreciated that he at least took the time to write his essay before he asked to go to the bathroom and didn't come back.

A Literary Example of Irony

Today we had a 250 word in class essay on a time in which you set a goal to change an aspect of your behavior. One girl was unsure of what to write about, so I asked some of the other students for examples, and I basically told her she could write about anything. I was walking around to monitor the students' progress and noticed she still hadn't written anything. After most of the class had finished, I noticed she hadn't written much. When the bell rang she turned in her essay. It simply read:
"A goal to change an aspect of my behavior is not to procrastinate. When I was in the junior school I procrastinated a lot by playing games and drawing. But now that I am in high school I can't be doing that."