In kindergarten, the children have a habit of gently (screaming) informing the teacher of any infractions committed in the classroom- especially
if they involve bad words and/or your very, very best friend in the world.
Typically, when the teacher asks what the bad word was that
Tommy said, the response is either Dummy, Shut-up, Baby or Fat.
(Sigh. Those were the days.)
We were working on our shape pictures today in first grade, when Max yelled
over to me, “HEY! Mrs. Smythe,
George just said the D word!”
I was busy working with several easily distracted clients at
my table, and turned towards his set.
“I’m sure it’s okay, Max," I said in a loud voice,"Use an I-message and tell him how you feel about that,” I
said, in an attempt to diffuse the situation.
“But he said the D WORD! You know, the really BAD D-word!” he insisted, his voice booming over all the other sounds in the
classroom.
I was about to tell him to come to my table so that we could
talk about it, when he shouted, “DAMMIT!
He said DAMMIT!!”
Yeah.
Not the Dummy, Dum Dum, or Dopey that I had hoped.
My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. I was a bit speechless when Pierce,
seated at my table, looked at me.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Smythe, that’s not that bad. You know when you went to the doctor’s
yesterday? Well, Billy said the F
word really loud. The F word that sounds like duck.”
Oh good, that makes me feel a WHOLE lot better.
Tomorrow's "word work" lesson? Words we DON'T say in school.
Kind of.
Kind of.
