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One of the greatest things about being a teacher is that you get to laugh everyday.  Sometimes I’m laughing at myself but most of the time I am laughing at something my students said.  Whether I am with a Kindergarten class or the 8th graders, I always hear something that gives me a belly laugh.

Like the other day, when I went to pick up the kindergarteners for art class, I had a few minutes to look at the students’ pictures.  One little girl, Alana, called me over to show off the drawing of her house: it was two stories tall with symmetrical windows around a center door.  In each window was the face of one of her family members.

“This is Derek saying hello to you,” she explained, pointing to each face.  “This one is my mom cooking dinner.  And this one, upstairs in the middle, is daddy.  He’s sitting on the toilet yelling at me to shut the door.”

Ok.  Moving on. 

I quickly scooted over to the next child, a little bruiser of a boy named Kenny.  He had drawn a full-sized self-portrait.

“Mrs. Andersen, come see what I drew!” he said.  “Here is my head.  And these are my arms.  And these are my legs.”  He soon pointed to something he had drawn in the lower center of his torso.

“And this is my organ.”

He did NOT just say that!

“Very nice Kenny,” I stammered.  “Let’s put that away and get ready to go to art class.”  I walked over to the Kindergarten teacher who had watched my entire exchange with Kenny and was laughing wholeheartedly. 

“Did you just hear that?” I asked.  “Is that what kids are calling IT these days?”

The teacher kept laughing and told me Kenny had brought his miniature organ—one that played music—to school.  He included it in the picture because he was so proud of it.

I guess you can never take what a 5-year-old says too literally.

Dealing with middle schoolers is completely different.  With that age group, you have to be very careful in choosing your words because the average teenager will distort your comments and search for any sexual innuendo they can—even where none exists.  For instance, after spending several years teaching physical education, I learned the hard way not to yell “Hold your balls!” to the 8th graders during the basketball unit. 

The most difficult time came recently when I was guiding the students through the Romeo & Juliet unit.  I had not read Shakespeare for many years and did not remember that he often wrote using rather bawdy phrases.

In the opening scene of Act I, two of the Capulet men are discussing the Montagues and their hatred for them.  The Montagues approach and, much to my chagrin, one Capulet tells the other to “Draw thy tool.”  The other’s reply is to say, “My naked weapon is out.”   

It was all I could do to rein the boys back in and get them to continue reading the play.  (By the way, do you know how long that play is?)

While I was embarrassed to hear the boys’ laughter at the lines, I guess I’m somewhat glad they’re paying enough attention to find something in the story they like. 

However, from here on out, there will be no more Mr. Shakespeare on my watch unless it is the G-rated version. 

The original makes me blush.  

Margaret Anderson is the mother of three teenagers and a middle school teacher somewhere in the Midwest.  She is a regular ShareWIK.com columnist.