Yesterday I taught one of my favorite classes, and when my lesson plan ended a full 15 minutes before the bell rang, I asked them if they had any general questions or anything they wanted to talk about for the final few minutes. One kid raised his hand.
“Are there gangs in New York?”
“Well, yes, they exist.”
“Do you have any friends in a gang?”
Once I stopped laughing at the image of any of my friends partaking in any gang-related activity whatsoever, I explained to him that generally to be initiated into a gang you have to actually murder someone, so no…I don’t think any of my friends are Bloods on the sly.
Maybe I should have known better, but they were actively participating and speaking pretty decent English so I decided to try my luck. “Any…other questions?”
Same kid raises his hand. I brace myself.
“Can you tell us the…gros mots?” For those of you reading this Stateside, “gros mots” is the French equivalent for curse words. Not wanting to downright reject this kid’s question (they were participating!...and that’s sort of rare in my school), I instead said:
“Well…I’m sure you already know them.”
It was at this moment that my students shed their timidity to shout vulgarities at me.
One girl went straight up Tourette’s and started shouting, “FUCK! MOTHERFUCKER!” Other kids chimed in with “Shit!” “Damn!” “Bitch!”…My students usually won’t even go so far as to tell me their name and hobbies without turning red and mumbling, but when it comes to cursing they’re all of a sudden fluent in English, yelling obscenities loud and proud? Kids these days.
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