Watch Your Mouth

As teachers, my friends and I sometimes assume the students
know more that they actually do. Take vocabulary, for instance.
We assume they have been exposed to the same words we have.
This is not the case, since our vocabulary is determined to a
large extent by how much we read, and words we have seen.
Some of our students had never been more than 10 miles from
home. And they didn't exactly have home libraries.

At one time I coached 7th grade girls' basketball. We had
practices with the 8th grade team, coached by my friend, who
for legal purposes will be known as "Betty Jones." Betty would
tease the kids into giving extra effort. She had a great sense of
humor, and the girls responded well. When one did something
dumb, like tried to make a lay-up and bounced the ball off the
bottom of the rim onto her head, Betty would say, "You silly
twit, pay attention to what you're doing!" They took this well,
and got along with her just fine.

One day Betty was called into the office to meet with the
athletic director and the superintendent. Seems one of the
players, who just happened to be a school board member's
daughter, got into an argument with her little brother at the
supper table. He told on her for getting in trouble on the
bus, and she said, "Shut up, you stupid twat!" Her parents
told her not to use that kind of language. She said, "Well
that's what Miss Jones calls us all the time."

Another example: one of our male friends taught 5th grade.
Let's call him "Bob Smith." He tried to break his class in right
from the first day. "Now, I am easy to get along with if you
do what you're supposed to do. You may think I'm nice right
now, but let me warn you, if you don't do your homework, Mr.
Smith will be a holy horror."

One of his boys went home and asked his dad if men could
be whores. "Why do you ask?" "Well, in class today Mr.
Smith told us if we didn't do our work he would become
a whore."

One of the high school teachers used to walk by the detention
students as they were lined up for bathroom break and say,
"Malcontents." A student of mine wanted to fight him. I asked
why. "Because he called us a bunch of 'milk tits.' What does
that mean, that we're babies?"

So.....teachers, watch what you say, or you may have some
explaining to do.