Lemondrop

Cursing in the classroom is something every teacher deals with at some point, but often not in the way we expect.

I cut my teeth at an urban high school, where the kids' affectionate nickname for me included an expletive. But now, in my suburban middle school, I find myself hearing horrible language where, in fact, none exists.

For instance: On Halloween, the kids were talking about their plans for the evening. One young man looked right at me and said conversationally, "I'm going to sit on my front porch, with my ho's." I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. He stared back at me with big wide eyes; he knew he was in trouble, but he didn't quite know why.

"What," I asked, dangerously quietly, "did you just say?"

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"I'm going to be on the porch, with the ho's ... in case someone comes to egg my house?" He spoke as if I was a little bit senile.

"With your ... ?" Oh. I stopped there, luckily. I got it now; with his hose. As in, garden variety.

This very same day, I asked the kids to imagine a "deleted scene" from a book we had read. One student asked if he could record his "deleted scene" as a sort of book on tape. There's some mild profanity in the book, and he asked if he could use words of that level in his assignment. I agreed.

We were working on the project in the library that day, and the huge room was silent, filled with busy children hard at work. Then, breaking the absolute quiet of the room was the sound of my student shouting into the recorder, "Damn it, Sugar! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I was startled, but just chuckled to myself and ignored it. But then he said it again. And again. Apparently, he was having trouble recording that line just right. So for nearly an hour, every five minutes or so we would hear, "Damn it, Sugar! ..." with a slightly different inflection. Near the end of class, the librarian started to look a little nervous.

That night, I knew if I dreamed, I would see a teenage kid sitting on a porch with a garden hose and a bunch of scantily dressed ladies (his ho's). He'd lean back in his chair, gesture to one of the women with the nozzle and say, "Damn it, Sugar! What the hell do you think you're doing?"