tales from a fifth grade nothing

In response to my recent graduation I have taken a most lofty position as a substitute teacher for AISD. It's kind of like being The Fugitive--every day I'm someone new, some place new, pretending to know things I don't. Really, it's a rather exotic job.

On Friday I was a fifth grade teacher. Fifth graders are interesting creatures--in one moment they look sweet and innocent and they want to know all about you (what's your first name? how old are you? are you married? what's your favorite sport? if you had a choice between a new car and $100 which one would you take?...I'm not kidding, these are all actual questions). The next moment they're calling the teacher next door a "hater,"pronounced "hate-ah," one who dislikes the actions and/or beliefs of another, example: "Mrs. X is a hater. She's always up on me like I can't do nothing right." Then they proceed to sing Eminem songs at the top of their lungs, "Will the real Slim Shady...," while their classmates attempt to clip each other with office supplies, coat their hands with Elmer's glue, just to peel it off, and EAT holes through the center of their homework. My response to this, and I quote, was, "Ewwwwwwww."

At one point I had an intriguing conversation with a young lady in my class. She came up to the desk to ask me a question and in the process said the word "ain't." To which I corrected, "isn't." To which she countered, "Mrs. Lemmons, I'm from Texas and we don't say 'isn't' here." I was forced to admit she had a valid point and proceeded to blow fish bubbles of shock as she returned to her math worksheet.

But my all-time favorite, can't imagine how another student will top this, moment goes as follows:

For our science lesson, we were to watch an extremely boring video made by National Geographic on natural disasters. About half-way through the 38minute video, the kids completely lost interest and began yelling, screaming and being generally disorderly so I stopped the video and asked them questions about what they had seen. Finally, I asked the question, "Has anyone seen or lived through a natural disaster?" A little boy in the back of the room raised his hand and began attempting to tell me about a tornado he had witnessed, but he was so excited his words jumbled in his mouth and fell in a tangled mess at his feet confusing him and us in regards to what he was trying to say.

At this point, a little girl who was very very white, had glasses and long black stringy hair, and looked like she should belong to the future psychopathic killers of America said, "It's because he's Mexican. They all talk too fast."

She said this in a class where at least 50% of the students were Mexican.

I thought I was going to have a riot. The class erupted in comments all directed at this very unwise little girl. I then steered the conversation back to natural disasters and re-started the movie.

::sigh:: Fifth graders. ::shakes head:: Will wonders never cease?