Teaching Family Life, pt 4

This posting comes with a content warning.
You should also read the previous 3 postings before this one.
This has been quite a year in Family Life. I am reminded by the questions and comments they have how important this unit is for them. You have to take a step back and really look at these questions to get a hold on what these kids are thinking, wondering, worried, or just plain vexed about. I have had quite a few people -- teachers and non-teachers -- tell me they're glad they don't have to teach this, and well, I have to admit, it's not something I would jump up and volunteer for. But I have my game face and try to make it interesting for them. They are in a vulnerable spot and they are truly clueless!
But who can blame them?
AND I can't say that I had anything like this when I was in 5th grade!

Here's the questions from today's batch of boys.

1. If one egg comes out, does another one grow?
2. What if a little egg is stuck?
3. What causes orgasms? <----------We did NOT talk about this in class!!!!
4. Why do people stick penises in a vagina?
5. How do you get the egg out?
6. Why do girls have a period every 28 days?
7. Where is the most common place to grow hair more?
8. What is a vagina?
9. What is a uterus?
10. Why do they show something so nasty?
11. When do you get your baby egg?
12. Why do sometimes the babies die?
13. I learned that girls grow hair just like boys do.
14. What's an umbilical cord?
15. Do babies come from eggs?
16. How do you get breasts?
17. Why do boys have a penis?
18. How does the baby come out?
19. Why do they need pads and tampons?
20. What is a pad or tampon?
21. Um, why do boys eat more than girls?
22. How do you know when puberty starts?
23. If the egg comes out of the women, is there going to be another one in its place?
24. I thought the boy has the egg and when they have sex then the egg gets delivered.
25. I learned not to look.
26. What is a flow? (menstrual)
27. How do voices crack and what makes them do that?
28. Has a baby ever come out of a woman's butt?
29. Can the ovary pop and all of the eggs pop?
30. Do both fallopian tube eggs come out at the same time?
31. Does fallopian tube blood go down to the uterine lining?
32. I learned to be glad to be a boy.
33. What happens when a girl has her period at the same time she has sex?
34. How many eggs does an ovary have?
35. If a tampon gets stuck in the vagina, does it bleed and you die?
36. Where does the milk come from?
37. When you have a period and the baby is inside, does it hurt the baby?
38. What if one woman's breast were really big and what if they don't have a size [bra] for it?
39. What will happen if the egg gets stuck in the fallopian tube?
40. Does it hurt when a girl bleeds?
41. I learned what a bra is.
42. Where will the sperm go if there is no egg?
43. How can baby twins be in the same place?
44. When the egg gets fertilized, what happens to the other eggs?
45. So, young girls get periods, like when they're 9 and older?
46. Does it hurt when you put a tampon in a vagina?
47. What does a vagina look like?
48. Can you get a boy pregnant?
49. What happens if a woman is pregnant and she doesn't look like it, but a man sperms her, will it affect the baby?
50. What if a woman runs out of eggs?
51. Is it true leftover food turns out to be poo in the body?
52. Why do they show nasty stuff?
53. What does it mean when you pee and it hurts?
54. If you have sex twice, do you have two kids?
55. What is the difference between cow milk and woman's milk?
56. What is a dick?
57. Does it hurt a girl when the blood comes out of her?
58. What would happen if the fallopian tube got clogged up?
59. How does the sperm meet the vagina?

Teaching Family Life, pt 3

This posting comes with a content warning.You should also read the previous 2 postings before this one.
Today was a mild twin day. I knew the twin questions would eventually show up-- they usually do -- but I wasn't so ready for some of the other questions or comments.
Here's today's installment:
Girls

1. Do moms when they are pregnant have to rest a lot?
2. Is it true that when the baby is coming out that it sucks it's thumb?
3. Do all babies cry when they come out?
4. Which is better, cesarean or natural child birth?
5. Is it possible that you can be 80lbs when you're a baby?
6. How does your water break?
7. What would be the signal that you are having a baby?
8. What part is the labor?
9. What does peer pressure really mean?
10. Why does the baby come out crying?
11. How does the space where the baby comes out close when the baby comes out?
12. Did you show what you showed to us to the boys?
13. What does a mid-wife do?
14. What if the baby is too big and it can't circle around the placenta?
15. What if a pregnant woman falls , does the baby die or get hurt?
16. What causes stretch marks?
17. Can you have a period when you are pregnant?
18. if you have a belly piercing and you get pregnant, does the belly piercing pop off? Also, HI!
19. Can you decide when the baby is born?
20. Does the baby drown in the water that's in the stomach?
21. What if you were having twins? Would there be enough room?
22. How do babies survive the water conditions in the stomach?
23. Why does pregnancy have weird side effects like throwing up?
24. Can you go to the pool while you're pregnant?
25. Ms. ***, your clothes are nice.
26. Does a baby ever get stuck inside you?
27. So, your parents have to have sex to have their own child. (you can almost hear this person saying, "hmmmm," or "ewwww.")
28. Is it easy to give birth in water?
29. If you have 5 kids at the same time, are they going to become smaller or does your stomach just stretch that far?
30. If you have no breasts to feed your baby, do you just get bottle fed?
31. If the baby is inside and not had its first breath, how come it is still alive?
32. Is the baby coming out were women pee, or from the stomach?
33. Hi Ms. ***, I love your outfit. Mostly your earrings and the necklace. Your matching with gold. You look like a teenager today.
34. When you give birth, is your tummy still big?

Boys

1. Do balls pop?
2. Is a penis like a breast because it has milk?
3. Does your milk become strawberry milk if you eat too much strawberries?
4. If you're freezing, would the milk be frozen?
5. Where does milk come from?
6. Does the vagina grow when the baby comes out?
7. If the mom does gymnastics, will that help the baby?
8. Can your baby drown if you drink too much water?
9. Can your egg break?
10. What if two sperms get to the egg at the same time?
11. How many things do you have in your penis? (I think he was referring to the diagram with lines to different parts)
12. How do you get blood in to your penis?
13. How does your penis turn hard?
14. Do you have to pee out the sperm into the woman?
15. How is pee formed?
16. Do balls have colors?
17. What are testis?
18. Why do people get acne in puberty?
19. What happens with triplets?
20. When is the penis big?
21. For how long do you get pimples?
22. If you have twins, will they be smaller than 1 baby?
23. If a girl is born, does she come with eggs?
24. Do male seahorses give birth?
25. What happens if the baby is fat?
26. What if the baby inside kicks or punches the stomach -- does it hurt?
27. Does the baby do number 2 or 1 in the mother?
28. Where does the milk come from if you are breastfeeding?
29. Is it possible for a 7 year old to have a period?
30. What happens if you just leave the baby in the belly?
31. What if you do not know you're pregnant and you drink, is that your fault?
32. Why do pregnant ladies go to the bathroom a lot?
33. What if the mom has body problems or mental problems, with it effect the baby?
34. How do children get conjoined? By the way, nice shirt.
35. Can a boy and a girl be a twin?
36. How does a baby fit through a small whole when babies are pretty big?
37. When your baby is a kid [read older] and does your breasts still make milk?
38. Because there are two tubes, does it matter if one tube put the egg? Will one tube be a boy or a girl?
39. When you have a baby, do you still have a period?
40. How does a woman get milk in her breasts?
41. How do you get twins?
42. If there were twins, would they be in the same place?
43. If there are twins, will one egg go through one of the tubes and the other egg go through the other tube?
44. Does the woman use the other tube on the right? If so, what is it used for?
45. How does the baby come out? Does it come out the vagina?
46. How can the mom push the baby at 5 pounds and the size of a watermelon?
47. Is it normal when a mom is pregnant that she will get weird food cravings?
48. Does chocolate milk come out if you eat too much chocolate?

Oh boy! That's a lot of questions. It is amazing to see what they think about after seeing this material. I am also glad that I can answer some of these questions to clear up any misconceptions (pardon the pun). Some of the questions are great and you can see them trying to make sense out of it all. Some of the questions are just bizarro!

Teaching Family Life, pt 2

This posting comes with a content warning.
You should also read the previous posting before this one.
My previous one should also come with one, but this one just jumps out at you. The girls seem to be a bit more focused on certain concepts here.
Here's some more questions and comments from Family Life, this time it's the girls. This is just a few of them.

1. The video was nasty and I hope I never see it again.
2. how come boys can't wear something like a diaper so they won't have wet dreams?
3. I love your shirt and your flip-flops.
4. Why are we learning about boys? We are not boys, so why are we learning about them.
5. If you get hit on your breasts, why does it hurt?
6. Can I have your top?
7. Why do boys have wet dreams, and how is this possible?
8. Hi Ms. ***, I like your earrings
9. Is it hard for girls who have periods to get in the pool?
10. I like your shirt and your shoes.
11. Why do we get disgusted when we hear about boys?
12. Like your outfit and earrings. No questions.
13. Why does a boys penis grow bigger? Miss ***, I like your earrings.
14. How many times does a wet dream happen in a boy's life? PS: Love your earrings!
15. Do the penises get short?
16. Luv your shirt. where did you get it and I like spaghetti and french fries!
17. What is the proper age to start shaving?
18. Is sperm a germ?
19. Ms. ***, can I have your earrings and your jeans to wear?
20. Why do girls go through more puberty than boys?
21. When boys wake up from having a wet dream, why is their bed wet?
22. What happens if boys don't have a wet dream?
23. Is a wet dream a guy version of a period?
24. Can a girl have a wet dream?
25. How come wet dreams are not pee?
26. If somebody hits you on your breast, will it grow? Nice T-shirt.
27. Ms. ***, I like your T-shirt and the flowers on it.
28. Why do boys have wet dreams?
29. When you have wet dreams, does it mean you peed?
30. Don't forget to give us our homework. And nice top.

Kinda makes me a bit self conscious about what to wear. I always heard that girls are supposed to be more mature than the boys. These questions don't really support this, do they? I don't think I've ever had a group of kids so fixated on wet dreams. Usually they get hung up on the whole twins concept. But then, this group has more than their fair share of twins among them. Go figure!

Teaching Family Life

I teach fifth grade, so that means that every year I can look forward to teaching the Family Life and HIV/AIDS health unit. Call it Pre-Sex Ed for hormonal upper elementary school students. Every year it seems that the continuum along the developmental scale gets wider and wider. I have gone from not sure any of the girls have started their period when I first started teaching (17 yrs ago) to knowing that a few of them started last year.

Side bar: My wake-up call came a few years ago when a girl came up to my desk and asked if she could go to the nurse. The nurse had made an announcement that we should only send real emergencies down if possible, so I asked a few questions (playfully, mind you) to ascertain the level of need.
"What's wrong?"
"I need to go to the nurse's office."
"You have a headache?"
"No."
"Stomach ache?"
No real answer.
"You're not gonna hurl on me are you?"
"No."
"Did you break something?"
"No."
"Fever?"
"No."
"Dizzy?"
"No."
"Asthma?"
"No."
"Itchy rash?"
"No."
"You bleeding anywhere?"
Silence, followed by a worried look on her face.
Silence, followed by the sudden realization of the problem.
"Uh. . . here's a pass and . . . go . . . I'm . . .sorry, nevermind."
I felt like an ass.

Now I teach the boys and my teammates take the girls. We give each student a note card in which they are required to write either something they learned or something they have a question about. I review them and then answer the ones I can the next session. Some of the questions are straightforward. Some are just plain bizarre.
Here are a few highlights of their questions and comments from the boys:

1. Where do people have sex?
2. If they do like it, is it still sexual harassment?
3. Do steroids affect your dick?
4. Are there different kinds of sex?
5. What's the difference between yellow pee and regular pee?
6. Can you grow hair on your but?
7. I know that people are crazy in this world.
8. What if you get circumcised on the penis, does it still grow?
9. Do girls have sperm too?
10. I learned why my dick gets hard.
11. Does sperm affect a girl when you have sex?
12. Can you die from sex or rape?
13. Can drugs infect other parts of your body? If so, which parts?
14. Why are most of the sex laws about girls?
15. Does sex hurt?
16. Can a girl rape a boy?
17. Do you play basketball? <-------yes, someone asked this. Huh?
18. Why do people have sex to have a baby?
19. What happens when people make you drink or smoke?
20. Why do boys get circumcised?
21. Why do people pay to have sex?
22. What happens if you ran down the road screaming at night, drinking?
23. What happens if kids have sex?
24. What does homo mean?
25. Where do babies come from?
26. Why is having sex cool?
27. Why do people kill themselves when things are not right?
28. If you have sex, will you get HIV?
29. Why do people choose to smoke? It's not cool, it's bad for your lungs.
30. How do you get AIDS?
31. I learned about hormones.
32. If you rape someone, but they let you, is that rape?
33. What is a condom?
34. Is being gay against the law?
35. Why does my penis get bigger and hairier?

I had many questions about rape and suicide. They were mentioned briefly in a glossary of terms. It was amazing how some of them seemed to focus in on those items. Usually, it is about twins and all the different kinds - but we haven't gotten to that yet.

There were some questions I am not allowed to answer. For those, like specific sex questions and anything to do with birth control (i.e., condoms), I tell them the standard line: "That is a question that you would have to ask your parents."

I will post more during the run of lessons.

I've been Punk'd!!!!

I can't believe it. I've been punk'd.
You know the show with Ashton Kutcher that is like Candid Camera?
Ya, by my own co-workers and students!
It was an amazing ruse, to say the least and it got me where I didn't want to see it.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, after being frustrated with the lack of effort and success by many students, I threw down the challenge that if they all got 100% on a spelling test that I would dye my hair blond.
I never saw it coming.
Sometime during the previous week, after I handed out the spelling words, the other teachers had each student fill out an answer sheet with the correct spelling and definitions. An assistant came into my class during the test to "help out and be interested in the results" (read, be an accomplice). While she offered to collect the tests afterwards and help grade, (we often will share grading), she switched the answer sheets to the previously filled out ones.
Not one kid said a word.
As I graded the definitions, she "graded" the words. With each page I got more and more excited. I must admit that I thought it rather unlikely, but I wanted to believe it.

And I did. Hook, line and sinker.

The big reveal was during today's recess as we let the kids have a few extra minutes.

I had no idea what to do or say. A lot of people knew about it and it took the cooperation of a lot of them to make it successful.
I wasn't mad about it and it was rather funny.

But I was really disappointed.
One of my students came up to me sensing my daze and dismay and said,
"But Mr. Selvin, you made me believe I could do it."

The students asked if I was still going to dye my hair blond. I said not at this time, but the offer still stands.

How do you eat?

You've got to check out this post from The Artful Kisser called Random Conversation #3. I guarantee that you will never look at someone eating the same way.

A Spelling Test, A Challenge, and Blond Hair

EDITORIAL NOTE: I was going to erase this posting in light of some interesting information that invalidates what happened below. The posting for April 16 explains.

OK, I've done it again. I'll explain that later.

This year I teach science and writing. It is a combination that works and it suits me perfectly. From what I can gather, my students (3 classes of about 26 each) love the science part and tolerate the writing part. Many hate the spelling part.
My philosophy on spelling is that words are very important, and understanding them unlocks many doors to meaning and experience. My spelling program is a combination of spelling, vocabulary and word study. 10 words are selected from relevant curriculum vocabulary and include understanding the definitions, and 10 others are selected as a theme -such as with a spelling rule, prefix/root/suffix, or language origin.
I have done this for the past 15 years or so (with appropriate modifications here and there) and have seen great results from the students on a whole.
But this year I have seen some of the worst results ever.
I have been quite discouraged by many of the students who continually do poorly (I mean awful) on these tests. Parents tell me how they struggle with their kids for hours and how much mental anguish it causes only to have them get a 4 out of 30 possible points. I've had meetings with parents and colleagues about this with no appreciable change.
My first class would get usually get a respectable 80% A's, while my second and third classes would get 75% less than C's and class averages in the 40's and 50's. I tried many strategies to help them, but again, often with no change.
Completely frustrated, I laid down a challenge: If everyone who takes the spelling test gets a 100% on their test, I will dye my hair blond. If at least everyone gets an A, I would throw them some sort of party (I wasn't too specific about that one).
You would have thought that I was offering them a million dollars! That is all they talked about all week. About mid-week, I noticed that kids were studying during recess and helping others who generally don't make the effort. They told me they finished their homework. They told me they took practice tests. They asked me if the definitions they had was what I was looking for.

It was amazing.
Even the students who gave up years ago were into it.

Well, I am happy to say, that all of the students who took the test got a 100% on this test! Even students who never passed the test before!
I asked the students, especially the ones who never or rarely seem to lift a finger, how they felt when they got the 100%. All of them loved it. I told them to savor the feeling; to hold on to it and remember how it felt and what they did to get it.
I asked them if they could do it again.
Most of them raised their hands.
I told them they should be proud of their accomplishment and that now there is no excuse for doing poorly again - and that if any of them needed some support, they should ask -- either from each other or from me.
I told them that while I won't volunteer any more extreme challenges like this one, but if everyone can maintain an A average, I will recognize them with some sort of (non-specific) reward.
And in the meantime, I will be making an appointment in the next few weeks to get my hair dyed blond.
Like Jack Black.

In Search of Long Lost Friends, pt 2

No, I haven't heard from my friend Steve yet, but I had another breakthrough of a friend I was looking for: my college roommate, Mike. Since we last spoke, we've each gotten married, had a couple of kids and moved a few times.
I had to dig far on the internet to find anything that resembled something that I would guess would be him. As I've found with my name, Steve's and Mike's, there are A LOT of us around. Even with our last names. The trick to finding him was the way I narrowed the search. I remembered my father saying you can eliminate words to search just like you search for words (just use a minus before the term, like, -anthropology, or -Chicago, which came up quite a bit)
But there it was, after page 6 on the umpteenth word I eliminated, a clue.
(Let this also be a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to remain anonymous -- the internet is an amazing place, but also a sticky place for anything put on it.)
On the second call I made, I heard his unmistakable voice. After the initial shock of realizing who just called, we had a really long conversation of catching up. Of course, not nearly long enough to be satisfied, so I'm sure it won't end up there.

During the conversation Mike mentioned something that another lost friend, Mark, once mentioned: the thing about good friends is not how long it is between the times you see each other, but that once you are together it is like you've never been away.

In search of a long lost friend: Degrees of separation

Friends come and go: it's a fact of life. People enter your life unexpectedly, things click and then before you realize it, they're gone. While I have a few friends, I have even fewer really close friends.
Every once in a while I think about the close friends I have had along the way and wonder how they are doing once our paths diverged. I have a few that I regularly try to look up on the Internet, usually with little luck. For instance, I found my friend Luis, who was a Spanish exchange student from my senior year in high school and have tried to get in touch with him. But to no avail, he has either not responded or I have not reached him properly. I sent him a message in Spanish, but I got no response. I contacted a fellow Couch Surfer (couchsurfing.com) who was located in Grenada, Spain, where I tracked him down working at a local newspaper. She agreed to look him up and deliver my message, but have not heard back. Oh well, maybe it's a hint.

Another friend I wondered about was a good friend at the University of Maryland. Steve and I lived on the same floor in Anne Arundel dorm and we had some really fun times together. We did a lot of fun, offbeat and cheesy things together.
Steve was a year ahead of me and had a single, which I thought was immediately cool coming in as a freshman. But he wasn't the standoffish snob that other single residents seemed to be. I remember enjoying hanging out with him and I felt I could be me.
Steve was a RTVF major (radio TV film) and one day he asked me to be a subject in one of his projects. He took me around the area to several spots and filmed several sequences of me running away from some unknown menace. When I drive through those areas, I think about it.

Confession #1: I remember one evening we went on a quest to find cool dorm wall trophies: the ubiquitous Road Sign. We donned black/camouflage clothes and went out around the campus in search of something to bring back -- and sure enough, we did -- one stop sign and the (I think) women's sign from the bathroom of some building. We added it to our collection of other signs we found or acquired.

I also remember us jumping up on a coffee table in my dorm and lip syncing to Huey Lewis.

Stuff like that.

Confession #2: Steve, my roommate and I once went to a drive-in movie theater. We didn't want to pay per person, so I climbed in the trunk of the car while we went through the gate. Big deal? Well, it was an X-rated movie. LOL!

A couple of weeks ago I looked Steve up again and thought I'd try to filter through the dozens of folks out there with the same first and last name as his and any derivation of Steve. There were quite a few. I was able to find some good candidates, but no phone numbers or emails. But I did find one that was in the entertainment industry on the production side of the camera. I tried to figure a way to reach him, but there just was no way I could figure out how to break in -- it was like there was an information barrier. I even got a hold of an agent of one of the actor/producers who worked with him on a project-- but I left that conversation thinking she thought I was a loony.

I mentioned this to my wife, who is in the last days of her job at a start-up cable TV network. She said to let her see if she can look him up through some of the channels she has. She called me up today with what I hope is great news: She found a producer named Roger who worked with him on a project. He called me up and after filling a bit of background information he said that the Steve he knows is definitely the one I have been looking for. He said he'd look for his number and give him a call.

I hope this one pans out. (film pun intended)

Teaching Family Life / Conversation with a student

In my school system, 5th grade teachers (who are tenured) teach Family Life. That in itself is worthy of its own posting, and I probably will write something about that.
What I can say now is that we really need to teach this stuff to our kids. They come to us with such strange ideas and misconceptions (sorry about the pun).

Here is a conversation that I had with one of my students today:

"Your mom, is she old?"
"What does old mean? To you, you think I'm old."
"Well, right. But is it possible for your mother be younger than you?"
"What?"
"Your mom . . . Or dad . . . Can they be younger than you?"
"Can your mother or father be younger than you? Is that what you're asking?"
"Yes, is it possible?"