I told my students we'd be filling in DoE surveys this week. My kids don't speak a lot of English, so it takes a little while to explain.
"Surveys are wack to the heck," observed Paulo.
"What the heck does wack to the heck mean?" I asked.
"You're supposed to know that." Maria informed me. "You're the teacher."
She had me there. But then I remembered what my daughter had told me.
"You're wrong, Maria. That's slang and slang is for kids."
Much discussion ensued about who exactly was supposed to know what exactly. We finally decided to go to the source, and asked Paulo what he meant.
"I don't know, teacher." he confessed. "I just opened my mouth, and it came out."
Things like that used to happen to me a lot, too. When I became a teacher, I really had to work on stopping it. It's even rougher, though, for kids just learning English. Apparently, sometimes even they themselves don't know what they're talking about.
They'll get it, though, if we give them a little time and patience.
*Roughly, if you keep your mouth shut, flies won't get in.
Related: See what a city parent thinks should be on the parent survey.
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