SCENE 1, INTERIOR. MORNING, FIFTH GRADE CLASSROOM. The teacher is currently giving a series of 5 different spelling tests simultaneously to his class. He has made it a point to use each students’ name at least once in a sentence. He has now reached the end—having successfully used each students’ name. There are only a few words left on each list. The teacher looks down at the current word: kitten. He pauses momentarily, remembering a shirt he saw online a few days before about grammar, and uses a similar sentence].
TEACHER: Kitten. Every time you spell one of your words incorrectly on this test, somewhere, a kitten dies. Kitten.
[A ripple passes through the classroom, some students are surprised, others are amused at the sentence which was used.]
SCENE 2. A FEW MINUTES LATER. The teacher is now checking over students’ spelling tests. Students hand their teacher their tests one at a time. With each misspelled word, the teacher circles the word and then hands the test back to the awaiting student and comments:
TEACHER: Two wrong, Morgan? Bummer, it looks like you just killed two helpless little kittens. Better luck next time.
TEACHER: Tanner, you only missed three this time! Great job! Not too many kittens were sacrificed for your test today!
[A boy, standing at the end of the line slowly makes his way to the front. He is clutching his test to his chest like it is a letter from a dear friend. As it becomes his turn to get his test checked, he hands it over to his teacher. The teacher’s eyes widen in surprise, Joey usually does far better than this].
TEACHER: [In a hushed voice]. Joey, what happened? You usually do much better than this on your tests each week.
JOEY: [Leaning in to whisper his response]. I don’t like kittens. [Joey pauses, as if in deep thought, after a moment he whispers] How many kittens did we kill today?
TEACHER: [Still caught off-guard]. Uh…about 26 altogether, I think.
[Joey nods solemnly as he takes his test back and whispers].
JOEY: Don’t worry; I’ll be able to get a lot more of them next week.
Fade to black.
8-18-2011: Did you know that there is a shirt available?
10 comments:
Oh, Joey... that was awesome. Give the kid a hug for me, will you?
that story is HYSTERICAL!!!! I love it! :)
I would be interested in how you came up with the name Joey....what's the significance of this name?
Oh man. This is so awesome. What a kid.
And you really are a great teacher.
OH MY GOSH!.....You might have created a monster!
*shakes head* PETA we have a problem.....
Is this a real student in your class? If so he's pretty freakin awesome!
Gerb - Some days he drives me crazy, some days he makes me laugh.
ME - "Joey" is a fictional name because I don't want to use real kids' names. The name came to me a few years ago when I was telling my class about the antics of past students to use as examples. Since I knew that some of them would know these students, I chose a name to use instead.
Joey just came. Perhaps it's because I read the book, "Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key' when I was in college getting my degree; it could be that that is where it came from. http://www.multcolib.org/talk/guides-joeypigza.html
Jayne - You should have heard his little conversation with me yesterday...since I was at my laptop entering grades as we talked, I opened a document and started to type the conversation.
Kris - Hopefully not...Joey is a bit 'out there' sometimes, but he's a good kid at heart.
Shoe - What problem? ;)
Trevor - To answer, yes, he is real. The experience of the kitten and 'inappropriate' are both the same boy. Since I use the name 'Joey' to talk about experiences of any of the boys in my class, he really could be any student, or boy, I've ever mentored.
In this case though, like I said, I've written about this same 'Joey' twice and I already have another experience (Friday's conversation) which I'll post sometime soon.
After all, this boy never leaves me wanting for material...
I didn't see that one coming. Then again, I shouldn't be all that surprised.
Before each flight we are given a cargo load report, which gives us the number of bags and whether or not we are carrying any live cargo. If so, protocol states that we must provide conditioned (heated) air in the cargo area. On more than one occasion I've had a captain tell me that if it's a cat, don't bother.
Fortuntately for any cats whose owners chose to bring them along, the cargo load report neglects to name what kind of live cargo is being transported.
LOL!!! I guess that one backfired, huh?
oh my goodness! Thank you for a great start to my day. That Joey.
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