Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Parrots

When I am talking to kids, I often realize how differently I will phrase things in order to make them student-appropriate. For example, recently I was subbing for 2nd grade and the kids were writing about pets. One child wrote that he wanted a pet parrot. I smiled and said "A parrot is a neat pet. But you have to be careful. I got bitten on my finger by a parrot once."

The little boy asked what happened, and I paused for a second.

What I say to a child: "Well, I was not making good choices and I put my finger in his cage."

What I would say to an adult: "I was being a dumbass and wanted to see how hard it could bite. And yeah, it bites HARD. I almost shattered a knuckle. Luckily his beak had just been filed. Seriously though, totally stupid and I was sober, which makes it even worse."



Other examples:

"You need to keep your hands to yourself."
Keep your hands to yourself or I won't notice when that girl clocks you for touching her hair again.

"That was not a good choice."
What the hell is wrong with you??

"I can't seem to find it"
Your teacher needs to clean this crap up because I can't even find a damn pencil.

"That was an interesting experience."
I'm so blogging about this shit later.

6 comments:

  1. LOL. should have told the kid you were making a sacrifice for science. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bwaaa-haa-haa!! I love that sort of thing.

    I like it when I have to tell them I'm "not quite sure" why or how something works, when I know damned good well about it, but I'm not telling them. (If men fall in love with men, how do they, y'know, DO IT? Gee honey, I'm not quite sure...)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Haha, I've totally done the alternative explanation thing...especially 'I'm not sure.'

    ReplyDelete
  4. LOL my personal favorite is "Ok, kids, I need your eyes and ears up here!", which actually means "STFU and sit down before I smack the crap out of each and every one of you."

    ReplyDelete