good hair, bad hair

I have a problem with a boy and a girl in my classroom calling each other fat. Today, I loaded the American Heritage Speaking Dictionary onto the new-to-me computers in our classroom and the first child to use this handy new tool was the little girl with the oppressive mouth and oppressed ears. When you open the dictionary it goes to a randomly selected word and speaks it, Karma dictated that it choose the word, �obese� and scream it into the little girl�s face.

She is a dream student, I am very lucky to have a girl so willing to work hard and get along with other children; it is this one boy she has problems with. I was so embarrassed that my computer felt the need to wade into the fray of name-calling and shout insults at the poor child.

Today�s ridiculous activity was a Gatorade tasting. They each brought in a different Gatorade. Rastafarian brought in tiny Dixie cups from his bathroom at home and they tried the flavors one by one. That is just silly but my students get ridiculous when they would swirl it in the cup like they were doing quality assurance on some fine wine or cheap bourbon and then sniff the Gatorade. They started to discuss the consistency and texture of the Gatorade.

They really need to be challenged more in the classroom I think. They need to go on a wine tasting or tour a French restaurant�s kitchen. You can tell someone grew up in Europe when taking ten-year-olds to a wine tasting seems like an acceptable idea.

My favorite irony of the clean lives of modern Germans is that you can swim naked in the pool but you also have to wear a swim cap. Head hair bad, pubic hair good.