It is a crazy power trip to think that the majority of the words my kiddos learn in English come out of my mouth. Sometimes this is great- they learn things like, "I feel mad at you," instead of "F*** you," but sometimes it's also hilariously not great.
I call my students about 1000 different nicknames during the day, sometimes because I can't think of their names fast enough and sometimes because I'm just feeling silly. My whole homeroom has nicknames for one another because we spend 3 hours a day together and it's just happened.
My most common nickname for boy students is "bro". I don't know when it started, but even my coworkers have started saying it because I say it so much- and hilariously, my little accented English learners have started calling each other "bro".
But for girls, I have a whole vocabulary of nicknames, ranging from sweetie to honey to, occasionally, baby. Unfortunately, "baby" is the one my students seem to have latched on to (I really didn't think I said it that much!) and now I'll hear in passing, "Thanks, baby," "No problem, bro."
We're turning into some kind of 90s sitcom.
On the other hand, during guided reading this week we were answering some text dependent questions about the sequence of events in the story. The group couldn't remember what happened next exactly, and one sweet boy piped up, "Let's look back in the story," and started flipping through his book. I have said that exact sentence probably every day since school started, but it was still startling to hear it perfectly echoed out of a student's mouth. They really are listening.
This week was a hard week on a lot of levels, but the kids themselves were not one of them. They're learning and growing (and not saying the F word anymore at all!!) and that's all I ask of them. I have some upcoming blog posts in the works about how I teach sight words (and keep a bijillion sight words flashcards organized), collaboration across content areas, and routines in the middle school classroom. Keep an eye out!
What's the funniest thing your students have repeated from you?
