Guppies

Teaching freshmen is fun for a variety of reasons. (Wow, can you tell we've been working hard core on writing thesis statements and topic sentences in my classes this week...that is such a formulaic sentence...ha!) Anyway, I digress. Freshmen are fun because they don't take life too seriously. They're fun because they still have a bit of innocence about them. Life has not jaded them too much yet (at least not most of them).

They are also fun because they are a bit gullible. Today one of my students said a curse word until his breath. It wasn't directed at me, but, rather, at a mistake he had made on his paper. This student sits in the front row, about 5 feet from the table where I sit. Let me assure you, his seating placement was not an accident...he's just that kid :) So when I heard him whisper that word under his breath, I whisper back, in that voice where I'm technically whispering but actually talking loud enough to be heard on purpose, "C. what did you say?"

"Umm, oh....poop," he hesitatly replies.

"That's what I thought," I answered.

"How did you hear that?" questions the girl who sits next to C.

"Well," I explain with a very straight face,"in teacher college we have one class where we stand in the front of the room and other students sit in the back and whisper things and we try to hear what they are saying."

"Really?"

Unfortunately, as most of you know, I'm not a good liar, so I could only let her be in awe for a couple of seconds before I admited, "No, but I think it's awesome that you believed me."

I turn back to the papers I was grading with a smile on my face. Thank you, gullible freshmen, for giving me a little dose of laughter to carry me through to the end of third block.