Comments Students Make

When I tell others that I'm a high school teacher, the reactions are usually a mixture of sympathy and horror: "OMG, how do you do it? I don't have the patience." I then go on to explain that I enjoy my job, that one needs to learn to laugh at all the crazy things, and that kids are funny.

In fact, here are some of the best lines I have heard over the years. I'm also including test answers from F in Exams by Richard Benson.

• "Ms. J, did Shakespeare write this play on paper or stone tablets?"

• Once when teaching inferences, I began with a riddle: It's something a person makes and sells to others. The person who buys it never uses it and gives it away. The person who uses it, does not know he/she is using it. What is it? A student replied by saying, "Is it an STD?!" Gotta love it. By the way the correct answer is a coffin.

• A kid who had not done his reading asked, "How do I use a quote from the movie?"
  

• I asked kids the social expectations placed on women during the 50s. A student replied by saying, "They made sandwiches."

Though the following do not come from my students, I think these quotes are fab:

• Describe the chemical difference between H2O and CO2? ------H2O is hot water and CO2 is cold water.

• What happens during puberty to a boy?------he says goodbye to his childhood and enters adultery.

• Is the moon or the sun more important?----The moon gives us light at night when we need it. The sun only provides light in the day when we don't need it. Therefore, the moon is more important.

• Explain the phrase "free press."-------When your mom irons pants for you.

• What happens during a census?----During the census a man goes from door to door and increases the population.

• Express the term "stereotype?"------It is the kind of CD player you own.

• Explain the word "migration?"----A migration is a bad headache.

• Discuss the style of Romeo and Juliet.----It is in Islamic pentameter. The play is full of heroic couplets, one example being Romeo and Juliet.