students – Our Innocent Killings

Bananas, Birds, and Deer: Adventures in Creative Writing

In the course of my first year of teaching it occurred to me that all of these wonderful things the kids were learning about stories ought to be put to use, and I made them write their own short stories. It was an experiment I haven’t tried again, as such–I definitely think it a worthy endeavor, but the outcome left rather a lot to be desired. The naivete of the teacher allowed some references into certain stories (which were subsequently read aloud to the class) that should never have been mentioned in a well-regulated classroom. I did, however, gain some absolute gems from their brains.

One story had the protagonist in a bit of a slimy situation. As the student wrote, “I needed to get back to my palace, so I made like a banana and spitted.” I found the attempted use of a pun very admirable, but the actual wording made me wonder any number of things. For instance, did the banana impale itself on a spit? How would that help one get back to their palace? What does roast banana taste like anyway?

Is this what it looked like after lying in the flour?

Another story involved trying to save a prized pet peacock from certain death by some illness or another. It was very touch-and-go for a while, as I recall. In fact, after the owner finally gets the right medication for his bird, he gets home only to find that “his peacock was lying on the flour.” The class was relieved to learn that he was in the nick of time to save the poor peacock. I just figured it was indicating its preferred method of cremation: breaded and fried. After all, a meal is usually involved in a memorial; I guess usually the deceased isn’t the one consumed, though. Seeing as how the bird didn’t die, I suppose this is one moral dilemma we are saved from having to resolve.

Each of the stories that didn’t involve something illicit or inappropriate was filled with tension and angst–I do work with teenagers. One student, trying to emphasize how worried she (or her protagonist) felt at a point of high tension in her story wrote, “her hart was pounding.” Oh goodness. My husband briefly owned a pet deer when he (and the deer) were very young, but I don’t know many people who have their very own hart (whether it pounds or not). That’s even more exotic than owning a peacock. But what, dear reader, was the hart pounding? That shall have to be another question for the ages; the author never revealed that answer.

The Satisfaction of a Job Well Done

Jobs. Some jobs are amazing, some are tedious. Some are amazingly tedious. Jobs are something we have all of our lives, from the task of clearing our own place from the table through the career or careers we use to fill our time as adults.We can always hope that the job we have is one we enjoy, one we aspired to, one that is fulfilling. In order to achieve that goal, there is the need to do well in school so that there are options for success. A time spent exploring interests might be a good idea as well, but not everyone has that luxury. I did get that chance–I lived in a few different parts of the country, I explored different colleges, universities, and majors, and had a chance to work in a variety of fields while I gained my more traditional education. I can now claim experience in baking, running restaurants and resorts, administrative assistantship, selling golf putters over the phone, background checks, tutoring, substitute teaching, conducting student orchestras, and (of course) teaching. There are aspects of each of these jobs that I found fulfilling and aspects that were less enjoyable. Some I have dreams of revisiting one day. We’ll see what happens.

A smattering of jobs, I suppose. Now everybody sing…

In any case, waxing eloquent about jobs is prompted by an inadvertently profound studentism: “Thousands of people get jobs they hate and end up quieting.” This student claims that people, rather than quitting hated jobs, merely become quiet. I find this observation to be all too true. Think about it. I don’t know very many people who will voluntarily give up a job and a steady paycheck if they have one. Even if they are miserable, they stay quietly where they are, in order to support their lives and families. What a miserable concept.

On a related note, and one which often causes teachers to quiet, another student once wrote, “Almost half the students don’t do anything from the hours 8 AM to 3 PM.” Speak of profound observations. It is this problem that perhaps causes unsatisfactory jobs and people quieting later in life. If the students would learn and apply themselves between 8 and 3, maybe we’d all be more successful. Work ethic, anyone? Maybe we should reform everything. Just don’t ask me how; I haven’t figured it out yet.

Oh, My Poor Nerves!

Everyone gets nervous from time to time. Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice is famous for her nerves, ostensibly brought on by having five daughters to marry off and not enough fortune to make them desirable to prospective husbands. Some have speculated that her nerves came from having a husband who was far her intellectual superior (and her social superior as well) decide she wasn’t much worth his time after all. The poor woman had to do something to get his attention.

Mrs. Bennet from the A&E/BBC 1995 Production looking nervous

In any case, Mrs. Bennet is not the only person to ever have a nervous complaint, and as I said, everyone has had a case of nerves once or twice. I tell my students that I am nervous the first day of school, meeting a whole crop of new people, hoping that I’ve improved my skills enough that I can properly teach them, wondering if this is the class that is going to realise that they outnumber me and I can’t really do anything to stop them if they decide to mutiny. Well…I don’t tell them that last part. I do assure them of my nerves and genuine shyness when I introduce to them their first oral assignment. Of course, when I go all actor-dramatic on them to get their attention during Shakespeare, and play four roles at once, including a weeping, distraught Romeo, some of them accuse me of not being shy at all. I look at them in feigned bewilderment and reply, “That’s not shyness. That’s acting.” Then we continue our discussion of Romeo’s extreme emo-ness. He was probably nervous too.

However, I have never seen or read of anyone so nervous as one of my students apparently was. My students write autobiographically from time to time, and one student confided in an essay, “I was so nervous, it felt like my heart would fall out of my butt.” Now my friends, that is nervous. It’s also a marvelous example of original figurative language gone horribly graphic. At least they didn’t use a cliché. I love when students use their imaginations to come up with something glorious. Though this student may need a little refinement as time goes by, I am thrilled by the potential.

Incredible Feats of Strength

It is amazing what my students can do. Occasionally I wonder why, if they can do all the unbelievable things they write about, they cannot finish their homework. But I digress. Today’s studentism needed the whole family to accomplish, and it really did warm my heart to know they all worked together so well.

In today’s world of families falling apart, ignoring each other in favor of–anything, really, and going their own way as much as possible, I was thrilled that some students have families that work toward a common goal. I do wish more families were like that. I love having a family that, though it has many disparate parts, works together when something needs to happen.

I can only assume that the family of the student who wrote this is the same: when they see something that needs to be done, they all get together and figure out how to make it work. This is obviously a family with goals, dreams, and the wherewithal to make it happen. If you’re not convinced, check out what the student wrote; you’ll become a believer:

My mom, my brothers, my sister and I were getting ready to move Minnesota.

Wow. In an incredible demonstration of family togetherness and problem solving, they were about to move Minnesota. Where they thought Minnesota needed to go, or how they eventually decided they would move it aren’t explained. Perhaps they had begun with the District of Columbia, or had previously worked on moving Rhode Island, and felt that with their prior experience, they could safely move Minnesota.

I suppose in the end they realized the task was too much for them, which is why our maps haven’t been redrawn. However, even the thought of taking on such a daunting task is so beyond my purview that I’m amazed this student could write about such a thing so casually.

At least it wasn’t Texas.

Inadvertent Parallelism

Sometimes it’s not the things students write, but what they say. I recall overhearing a couple of students as they walked into our building after lunch. Keep in mind, as you eavesdrop with me, that the only classes taught in this building are English classes of one level or another.

Student One: What class do you have right now?

Student Two: English.

Student One, blithely: Okay.

I was hard-pressed to keep a straight face. Of course English!

So where does parallelism come into it? I have taught The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet a few too many times. In I:i, we see this conversation:

Benvolio: Tell me in sadness, who is it that you love?

Romeo: […] In sadness cousin, I do love a woman.

Benvolio: I aimed so near, when I supposed you loved.

Romeo’s response to his cousin’s query produces in the audience the same “Gee, really?” response that I experienced while listening to the two students. It is Benvolio’s dry response, however, that makes Shakespeare’s version rise to the heights of literature while the poor students I overheard will go down in very few annals of history for their witticisms.

I’m sure I’ve had a few stellar conversational gambits of my own–please don’t think I make fun of these things because I’m infallible. I just enjoy them so. I hope that my own oddities and “duh” moments provided someone else with the amusement I derive from the ones I’ve collected over the years. After all, “for what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?” (Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57).

Do pardon the jumble of literary references in this post. I have read enough that allusions are a standard part of my conversational vocabulary.

Anne Frank had a Dairy?

I was taught to be observant, and to take note of things of interest. I recall family conversations centering around misplaced modifiers (now that I teach them, I know what they are called)–those intriguing bits of sentences that make you tip your head to one side and look puzzled, if you pay attention. They have always amused me. Now, I wish I could draw the wealth of fun word pictures unknowingly provided me by perfectly serious students.

Julien Dupré “A Milkmaid With Her Cows On A Summer Day”

The first studentism I collected was during my student teaching. I planned and taught a unit, all on my own, to a class of 8th grade honors English students. It taught me many things, not the least of which that Anne Frank, with all due respect, had a dairy. It is a simple typo that I happened to see far too many times as I graded that first set of essays. But the crowning glory was when I learned that “In the dairy of Anne Frank, Anne and her family lived for two years in the attic of her father’s factory, which was behind a bookshelf.” (I’m afraid I can’t cite any of my studentisms; I didn’t keep any attributing information to protect the innocent.) It left me wondering: how big was that infamous bookshelf?

Not Anne Frank’s father’s factory bookshelf–but a very cool bookshelf nonetheless.

That was the first time I realized that a teacher really ought to know how to draw. It also made it difficult to take any of the essays on a very poignant, serious subject seriously at all.

As mentioned previously, I have collected an alarmingly large number of these little gems in the years since. I do hope you enjoy them as I do. They certainly make grading hundreds of essays more palatable.

Introducing Studentisms

Learning. It’s something we all do, and I hope I never choose to stop. For teachers, learning is our livelihood, our calling. In one sense, we learn anew each day that we can inspire hope and dreams. In another, we learn continuously how much work there is to be done. Some students arrive in our classrooms woefully unprepared not only for what we are teaching, but for many other aspects of life. Do we teach our subject matter, or responsibility? At the end of the day, which is more important?

Our leaders have realised that the educational system is broken, but their attempts to fix it appear to have gone awry. This often leaves the teachers feeling bitter, overwhelmed, and helpless as they watch students raised to the almighty test try (or not try) year after year to reach “proficiency” and wonder how this will really prepare our kids for life after high school. Life isn’t about multiple choice “bubble tests.” We should certainly aspire for more than mere proficiency! Yet that is the accepted measure of our success as educators.

It means we steal moments of time from the proscribed course of study to teach life, which many of our students have experienced only via a screen. They stare blankly, wishing the “commercial” would end so they can get on with what they’re forced to do. Some are forced to wait for the rest of the students to catch up while others are forced to attend school at all. It’s an interesting mix.

However! This blog is not about that. This blog is about the comic relief frequently found from those same students. I call them studentisms: typos, wrong usage, dangling modifiers, malapropisms, and anything that gives amusement while grading papers. After having collected them for a time, I pulled a phrase from a persuasive essay. I no longer recall what the essay was trying to argue, but the phrase reads, “all of their innocent killings.” The clouds parted; the angels sang. I had a title for my collection! It has morphed into “Our Innocent Killings” because no one is perfect, and we all kill the language at some point. I do hope you enjoy the journey with me.