First of all, yes! Thes are real stories from my classroom this week. I don’t know what happened this week. . .I don’t know if the exhilaration of this being “the week before a break” just completely turned their brains into mush, BUT they were NOT very intelligent this week. The sad thing — each of these stories is from the same class.
#1. We are beginning to study Shakespeare; on Wednesday, we discussed the English language and how it has evolved over the past 1000 years. A young, African-American girl asked me (and, she was DEAD-SERIOUS) “Miss, how did the word ‘Ethiopian’ come to mean ‘skinny black person’?” 
Trying not to laugh, I explained that “Ethiopia” was an actual country in Africa — hence, Ethiopians were the people of Ethiopia. She was completely floored — “For real, Miss? I always thought it just mean ‘skinny black person’!”
#2 Same class, same day; we had about two minutes before the bell, so we were just “chilling” as we had finished our lesson. The kids started to ask more questions about Shakespeare (they’ve been fascinated with the idea that he might have been bi-sexual); this led to one little boy bringing up something he had “heard.”
Boy — “Miss, is it true that a man can have a baby?”
Me — “Technically, yes; the man can’t conceive, but he could carry a fertilized egg
that was implanted in him.”
Boy — “How does all that work? I don’t understand how anything gets through the
shell.”
Me — (confused) “Shell?”
Boy — “Yeah — that hard, white shell.”
Me — “Human eggs, B__, are not like chicken eggs.”
Boy — “Oh. I thought all eggs were like that.”
#3 Same class, same day, same conversation.
2nd Boy — “Miss, you ever seen ‘Look Who’s Talking’?”
(I nodded)
2nd Boy — “So, is it really like how it is at tha beginnin’?”
Me — “What do you mean?”
2nd Boy — “Ya know, when all those sperm are swimmin’ to the egg?”
Me — (again, trying not to burst out laughing) “Yes, it is.”
The boy stopped for a moment, thinking. After a second, I could see a “lightbulb” go on.
2nd Boy — “You mean — I WON?!”
Me — realizing what he meant, could only nod.
2nd Boy — (turning to another kid) “Hey, S___, you won too!!!!”
As Curt says, if nothing else, you know at one time, you were the winner at something. .
even if it was just swimming upstream.
