A What?! (tales from a 7th grade classroom-first entry. This is for James.)

So, in my first class class of the day, we’re talking about our word of the
day: bedlam. (means chaos, confusion). We’ve already talked about
what the word means and I ask: “What would be some situations or
settings that you would expect there to be bedlam?

I get a couple of kids raise their hands and they say, “war” or an
earthquake or a tsunami. And then I call on this one kid and he says:

“A gangbang!”

I have no idea what my face looked like. I was a deer in headlights with my jaw hitting the floor. Then he said, “you know, like a bank robbery or something…” I say: “Ok…yes, like a bank robbery or something like that….” Whew!

I’m glad that 7th graders are pretty innocent for the most part. The
other day we were talking about plot and I had to talk about “climax”.

I knew then that they didn’t know otherwise or I would have had
snickers.