Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Sophomores are Not Players

I have a group of sophomore boys who pretend to be sexist. I believe that they say disparaging comments in class simply to get a rise out of other students, but they drew the line today when they said an inappropriate and sexually suggestive comment. When I asked the male ringleader, who is desperate for attention and (shocker!) single, if he actually believed the comments he said, he said, "Yeah, Mr. Substitute. Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?"

If there's one thing that I hate more than unsightly people who think they're players, it's sexist, repulsive people who think they're players. I played along with his analogy and replied, "Tom, who are you kidding? Don't you have to get the milk first before you can even apply your theory? I know you're not getting any milk, and no cow is ever going to give you the time of day until you lose the act. Don't reiterate comments like that in my class ever again."

Friday, March 09, 2007

"My name is Mr. Substitute, and..."

My students know that one of my foolish and silly ambitions is to be a contestant on MTV's dating shows, Next. For those who do not know the show, a "selecter" has a bus full of "selectees" to take on various outings in Southern California. The selecter dates as little or as many of the other contestants. If the selecter doesn't like a selectee, s/he can say, "Next!" and a new selectee will emerge from the bus. For each minute that the selectee lasts with the selecter, the selectee will receive $1. The selectee who wins has the choice of selecting another date with the selecter or to keep the money. Unfortunately, there is a special class of contestants who are immediatly repulsed by others and some selectees have the distinct honor of being "instantly nexted." These people earn a whopping $1 and a lifetime of embarassment for being rejected on national television.

Before someone can be instantly nexted, a selectee is given the opportunity to deliver a corny one-liner, demonstrating one's desperation to be on television. As a writing activity today, I asked students to write a one-liner either for themselves or me if we were contestants on the show. The winning one-liner goes to Charlie, who wrote this line for me: "My name is Mr. Substitute, and I'm going to give this girl some extra credit."