Awwwkward...

This last week I have experienced far more sexuality than I ever ever wanted to as a teacher. First and foremost, one of my older (but still pre-middle school and barely pubescent) students drew some rather inappropriate pictures in her homework book. The most striking one was of a girl in her underwear, blindfolded, and tied to a cross. This makes the student's earlier attempts to sit really close to me and to hold my hand as we walk down the hall even more awkward than they already were, especially since the drawings were somewhere I would inevitably see them rather than it just being some accident that I saw her sketches. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, since I was thoroughly preoccupied by the idea of sex by the time I was in the third grade, which is a fact that I try not to remember now that I teach so many third graders. I feel certain that I hadn't so much as heard of bondage until much later, but I suppose it is natural that they have since this next generation has had access to the internet their whole lives.

Today there were a couple of lesser incidents. Every kindergarten class has a daily English expression that they need to have memorized by the time they leave in the afternoon. These expressions range from the highly useful ("May I go to the bathroom please") to the moderately amusing ("What is that ridiculous thing on your head?") to the uber depressing ("Heneh Teacher is sad and just wants to be left alone") to the utter useless and bizarre ("The giraffe and the monster became friends and never fought again"[ok, I made this one up, but it really is astoundingly close to real ones that I can't recall word for word right now]), the latter of which I think are from the stories they read in other classes. Anyway, today's daily expression in one class was "Take my hand while you get off", which (I found out after talking to the teacher who chose it) is a rule for disembarking from the school bus, and is actually a phrase handed down from our head office. However, when I first entered the classroom and saw it written in the corner of the whiteboard I busted out laughing and had to fight down the laughter for another couple minutes of the class every time I looked at it. The kids thankfully had no idea what was so funny. Also, I'm glad that at least one of my co-workers has a mind as dirty as mine and also laughed right away, since another one only got it when I mentioned that it was inappropriate and another didn't see what was wrong with it at all.

Finally, in one of my afternoon classes with very small children today a child asked to go to the bathroom, and I said no (the school's policy is that they are only allowed to get water or go to the bathroom during the five minute breaks that they get every 40 minutes because otherwise half the class would go every class period). Upon my refusal Dragon (I don't know how he managed to get the teachers to allow him to change his English name from Frank, and while the teacher in me is mildly annoyed the rest of me thinks it's awesome) proceeded to whip it out, presumably to emphasize his need. Ok, really there was nothing sexual about this incident, but I really would rather not see the genitals of any of my students in any context.

As I said, awkward.