There are many moments in teaching when I sort of wish there were a pause button available on the corner of the screen. Rewind and mute would also be nice features, but as one shouldn't be too demanding, I'm choosing pause as the most useful.
One such moment occurred when one of my seventh graders asked me the question, "Miz Ritz, what's lube?"
I decide to attempt to enact this pause and considered my options in responding to this question:
1.) I answer the question truthfully, but he is trying to be obnoxious, raunchy, inappropriate, and knows exactly what this word means and is only trying to back me into an uncomfortable corner. Thus, responding with genuine information will only fan the flame and help him succeed in his malicious goals. (The students know that my cheeks flush to match my red shoes whenever I am embarrassed... or angry)
2.) I respond with anger or scolding or yell at him for being inappropriate and obnoxious when he is actually asking a genuine and innocent question and will now walk around with a misconstrued perception about the vulgarity of lube, whispering to his friends about how it means "vagina" at lunch.
3.) Walk away to completely avoid the situation, leaving the student confused or making the student ask the question louder and five more times in case maybe I just didn't hear him.
I am thinking of all these options while the student stares at me and I stare back at him as neutrally as I can while I ponder my choices. It seems that an eternity has passed. Perhaps if I stare at him long enough, he will reveal his intention. Or assume I am angry if he is guilty due to discomfort. Or just walk away.
Somehow the delay tactic magically works on the student and he explains further, "We went to Jiffy Lube last night and I didn't know what it meant."
I am still somewhat skeptical of the truth in this explanation, but I can handle car lube. I give a technical definition very related to the mechanics of cars, hoping there is no way to connect any of the words to sex. I review the words coming out of my mouth and I think I did pretty well. The student says, ohhhh, thanks me and walks away.
Potential awkward disaster... averted.
It's not you, it's me
16 years ago
hahaha, oh my darling Ritzy. The pause tactic isn't bad--or in any case, you can always stall by saying "Why do you ask?" and then more information will come out as it did involuntarily in this instance.
ReplyDeletehahahahahhaha. I had a similar moment this past week but I didn't effectively use the pause button function. A student asked me out of the blue if I smoked. And I automatically asked her suspiciously, "Smoke what?" (because a lot of other students have joked that all the teachers get high after work/on weekends). She blinked back at me confused, so I back peddled. "You mean cigarettes?" She nodded. "No, they're very bad for you." She nodded again, satisfied with my answer, but then... " Miss, why'd you ask smoke what?" The rest of the class sniggered. Efff.
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