Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Moments with Joey – Appropriate TV

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SCENE 1, EXTERIOR. MORNING, CROSSWALK. Students are arriving by ones and twos to school. The sun is about to rise above the snowy, eastern mountains. The teacher is on crosswalk duty, and is crossing students with the aid of the large stop sign. A boy waits on the opposite side of the street, practically busting with the need to share something with his teacher. Even before he’s crossed, he begins to talk excitedly from the other side of the street. The teacher moves to the crosswalk and stops traffic so the boy can safely pass.


JOEY: (excited) Mr. Z, guess what?


TEACHER: Good morning, Joey, what’s up?


JOEY: You’ll never guess what I watched on TV last night…


[The teacher shrugs as the child stops in the middle of the street. The teacher urges him to the other side, the boy still talking the whole way].


JOEY: I was watching this program last night about this murderer. It was a special on him because he caught this kid and drowned him in a lake and his body was found later on because the kid was dead. Now, the guy has been caught and he’s gonna go to trial for what he did and he will probably be in jail for the rest of his life or might even get the death penalty!


TEACHER: (somewhat speechless) Uh…whoa. And here I thought you were going to tell me that you saw High School Musical 3.


[The boy turns and begins to amble up the sidewalk, shaking his head].


JOEY: No, I’m not allowed to watch that, my mom says it’s inappropriate.


[Fade to black].

19 comments:

A Lark said...

Wow. Isn't that just so true, though?!

Linn said...

Please say it isn't true. Please say it isn't true. Please say...

jayne wells said...

Totally rad.

mywest said...

Another interesting day with Joey... I wonder what else is inappropriate in Joey's home life.

Rachel said...

Well yeah! There's girls and kissy stuff in those High School movies! Don't you know that all that "other" stuff is inappropriate but violence......that's okay.

Grief Mr. Z......you will not believe how many times I've had this conversation over the years with kids or their parents. Blows my mind! No sex, drinking, drugs, but violence! Well that's different. Violence is okay......

L said...

Scare tactics start young....

mamahasspoken said...

Thanks for the laugh this morning! Sad but true, had the same thing happen except they could play a well known violent video game, but not watch a certain cartoon because of the 'mature' overtones.

Gerb said...

In HSM people sing and dance in inappropriate places... like classrooms and on roofs or while they're supposed to be playing basketball. Sure, it's realistic, but it's unsafe. We don't want to put any crazy ideas into kids' heads these days...

Unknown said...

ACK! I am laughing in disbelief. Wow. I have a blog brewing (just needs to get written) about how I cringe everytime my kids come home from their grandparents because they always sit and watch COPS with them. Do you know how terrible COPS is? Lawson is just full of stories about the scantily clad women, the drunk imbeciles, the belligerent cops, the people that try to kill themselves...blah blahblah. And it's useless to tell my in-laws not to let them watch it--they just think I'm being over-protective. It's so annoying. But I'll save my vent for a post.

Just SO said...

Ha! Oh my goodness. I have to say that there have been times that I have left the tv running just for the noise and went in to find my children watching something I didn't think was appropriate.

Like the time I found my 5 year old watching a show about the Chupacabra. Oh yeah.

Sarah said...

NICE! That kid is being well supervised!

Richard & Natalie said...

WOW. I'm with mywest. Things that make you go hmmm...

Teachinfourth said...

J - Sadly, it is.

L - Sorry to admit it, but it is true.

J - I won't say that it didn't catch me by surprise.

D - I've wondered that as well at times.

R - Yeah, it's kind of funny how we can justify some things, and not others.

L - LOL

B - I have a few others which have the same thing...they play the video games or listen to the music, but aren't allowed to watch the movie.

G - I never thought of that...also, singing during the middle of a basketball game? Now THAT'S inappropriate!

L - Makes you kind of wish you could keep yours in a plastic bubble, doesn't it?

S - Wow, I wonder what YOUR kids told their teachers!

S - Isn't it strange...the things adults believe are 'appropriate' and those which aren't?

N - Or just shake your head in disbelief.

Anonymous said...

Scarily true. Glad I stumbled by your blog :))

Farscaper said...

Wow!!! What a strange standard that family has.

Teachinfourth said...

ED - You're welcome back anytime...

FS - It's a little bit funny, isn't it?

Amy said...

I'm always interested to see what is appropriate and inappropriate for kids at home. Then it's not a wonder why I have the issues I do with my students....some crazy parenting out there!

Cute story though!

Kathy V said...

I love your "Joey" stories. This is way too true. I wonder if I was just as bad. I wouldn't let my kids watch Disney movies repeatedly, but the original Star Wars was fair game any time. I don't even remember my reasoning now. Something about subliminal messages in Disney movies.

Corine Moore said...

LOL - OMG - What is this world coming to? Tragic, but hilarious!

BTY - I think HSM is great! Mindy was one of the dancers in the local HS play a couple of years ago. It was really fun to watch. Hopefully that wasn't too inappropriate of me to let her associate herself with such a movie! LOL

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