This is how hard Veronica works at Cedar Canyon Elementary.  During Field Day last week, she decided that it would be more fun to ride a pinata than do actual work.  Feel free to make your own jokes.

Today in class, Keagan picks up the chocolate apple and says, “You should split that in two and put both halves in my mouth.”

I’m sure going to miss these guys when I go to the junior high next year to work.

The most innocent response was, “But, he’s a deomocrat.”  Uh, duh.  I know that.  It was cute, though, because she was almost reviled by the fact that a person would vote democrat.  It seems that they can’t fathom someone not voting republican.

Another student was amusing and frightening at the same time.  She said to me, “You’re voting for Obama?” with such disbelief in her voice that I scrunched up my eyebrows when telling her yes.  Her response to that was, “But he doesn’t honor the flag or wear a pin.”

I threw her for a loop when I said, “Neither do I.” She had a look of horror on her face and I suddenly remembered last week, when we were learning about the Pledge of Allegiance’s history.  This girl was among those who thought it was wrong to not stand for or say the pledge.

Her views were clearly written on her face.  She continued with, “You know Obama is going to raise your taxes.”  My first thought was I wished that a teaching assistant actually made that much money to get into that tax bracket.

Instead, I tried to explain to her that every president eventually raises taxes in one way or another.  I wanted to explain the differences between Obama and McCain’s tax plans, but I don’t think this particular 10-year old could fully grasp it.  The best she could do is memorize the republican talking points.

A third student told me that if Obama got elected, then the economy was going to collapse.  I guess she doesn’t understand economics, nor had she looked at the DOW before she made that comment.  Then again, she is only 11.
My favorite response of the day was from the class wise-ass.  He said, “You’re voting for Obama?”  I nodded and he said, “Good, you get to live.”

Today, the class voted for their presidential candidate, though they were only given a choice of Obama and McCain and not McKinney, Barr, Baldwin, or Nader.  We’ll find out the results tomorrow.  I wonder if the results will end up in a lively, ill-informed discussion with a bunch of 10-12 year olds or if the subject will be dropped once they know the results.

The saddest part of the day is the realization that these kids are still more informed than some of the adults I’ve run into, online and off, in the past few weeks.

The only thing that I don’t care for is the high number of duties assigned to me. I’ve got nine duties while everyone else has three or four. It kind of sucks, but I’m trying to be positive. I’ve got two lunch duties, which means that I get to eat for free at the school when I have lunch duty. At least I don’t have to make my lunch two days a week.

I’m also still not used to going to school in August. It just seems wrong. And it’s way too hot here for it too. The nice part is that we get out in May. The work is also easy and I can’t really complain about what I have to do. It pays well and I work a lot less than any other job I’ve ever had.

While in math class, the students were learning about different shapes, such as cubes, pyramids, cones, etc.  We, eventually, had to cut the shapes out and make 3D models of them.  When the teacher was going through the definitions of the shapes, we got to the rectangular prism.

Fantastically, this student said, “A rectangular prison?  You mean like this school?”

For lunch today, I ate in the classroom with another student and teacher.  This student’s mother and father came to school to eat with him, his brother, and his sister.  When surrounded by such people, it is always best to keep your mouth shut.  We had been discussing several things, including the fact that the mother was from the East Coast.  The major topic, of course, turned to foods that we missed.

Proper pizza is a bone of contention for anyone who grew up on it and then is forced to live in a place where the people only know Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Papa John’s.  This is not real pizza!  Then, the mother said it.  Word for word.  Exactly as her son had been repeating to me.

“You know, it’s the strangest thing.  You’d think that because Pizza came from Italy, they’d eat it there.  But no one in Italy eats pizza.”

I nearly choked on my carrot.  I know my eyebrows squooshed down and the teacher who was eating lunch with me gave me a “what the fuck is she talking about?” look.  I clenched my teeth. I tried not to respond.  It was difficult, but, luckily, other people came into the room and the topic moved on.

A few minutes later, everyone left the room, except for myself and the other teacher.  She looked at me and, before she could say anything, I responded, “I know.  It’s not like I ate pizza as a snack every day when I was in Italy.  It’s not like I’ve actually been to Italy three time.  Oh, and I probably wasn’t really eating pizza when I went into the shop next to the Duomo every time I visit Florence either.”

“Uh, no,” I responded with a puzzled look on my face.  “but I have walked past the spot where it was.”

“Oh, so you’ve never been in it?”

“No, dumbass,” was what I wanted to say.  Instead, I said, “Nope.”  I wondered to myself as to whether or not this guy was as stupid as I thought or if he was winding me up.  I went with choice A.  This teacher is a nice guy, but he has some really weird ideas about things sometimes.

“Wow, I would love to go inside and see it.  Imagine all the history that is there.”  He went on about how great a visit to the Bastille would be.  I secretly agreed, but only because, in order to do it, time travel would actually have to exist and that would be far cooler than visiting a musty old prison.

The father in the story was fighting in WWI and the substitute teacher exclaimed,  “This movie was made during WWI.”  Well, no it wasn’t.  It was made in the late 90′s, but it’s set during WWI.  I figured I wouldn’t quibble over that, as it was probably just a misspoken statement.

Then she said, “Do you know how you can tell that it’s WWI?”  I waited to see if any of the fifth graders knew why.  I suspected answers would explain the uniforms, possibly the types of guns or tanks.  I even expected someone to yell that their story had actually put a date in it and explained what year it was and what was happening.

Silence.  None of the kids spoke up.  After several more moments, the substitute teacher spoke up.  “Look.  They’re in trench warfare.  There was no trench warfare in WWII.  There wasn’t ever trench warfare except in WWI.  No one else has ever used it.”

I put my head down and shook it gently from side to side.  I rested my head in my left hand, sighed, knowing that nothing I said would change this woman’s mind.  I’d worked with, and argued with her before.  I sighed again and ran my fingers through my hair, exhaled and went back to watching the movie.

I chuckled a bit and the teacher responded, Uh, no, XXXXXX, that’s not true. They were around much earlier than that.”

“Well then, they weren’t fixed right until the 1980′s because no one could use them correctly.”

The teacher rolled his eyes and said, “Okay, well, getting back to the lesson…”

WTF? Get a damn tissue!