Their chubby cheeks, broken English, and awkward dispositions make them appear cute and innocent, but I’m on to them!  Beneath their cocoons of deception are inquisitive little minions of Satan just waiting to escape.  The following is brought to you in part by Grand Theft Auto and the World Wide Web.

Me: “Where is Elliot today?”

Students: “Teacher, he suicide.”

Me: “Oh, he committed suicide?  Again?”

Me: “What is a ring?  Where does a ring go?”

2nd grade class: “Here!  (*points up middle fingers*)  Here, on the f*ck you finger!”  (*giggles uncontrollably*)

• A middle schooler’s hangman on the white board:  “SUN OF A BEACH”

I stole this gem from a friend of mine:

Teacher(on the topic of jail/prison):  “What do you find in prisons?”

Kids:  “Black people!”

T-shirt of a 8-ish year old boy walking around town with his father:  Cartoon picture of Kermit the Frog with the caption “Pig F*cker”.  Wow.  WOW.

• Yesterday I was given a detailed lesson by one of my middle school boys on the hierarchy of  English cuss words, complete with a labeled graph.

“Teacher, what’s English, uhhh… Cigarette!.. uhh… This!” (*dips finger and sticks in lip*)

Me (quizzically):  “Where do you come up with this stuff??”  (Side note: no chewing tobacco in Korea…)

All on seperate occasions:

“Teacher, MAFIA spelling?”

“Teacher, COCAINE spelling?”

“Teacher, SUICIDE spelling?”

“Teacher, AIDS spelling?”

Excerpt from a “Get Well Card” I had my 5th graders write to one another:

"Dear Jake, I hope you get very sick, and I hope you die of AIDS."

I don’t even want to try to recall how many times I have been Dong Chim-ed by the kids…. (meaning “poop-needle, which describes the common action of them sticking a finger or two up your ass in the middle of the crowded hallway.  This is perfectly okay behavior, by the way..)

And for my personal favorite:

Side note: I know some people are/will be alarmed by this piece of writing in the picture,.  I have brought it up to the other teachers in my school with the only response being “Oh yeah, her brother is a bad boy”.  Being a relatively new teacher, and a foreigner at that, I believe that is all I can really do on the matter.  At this point if the school is not worried about it, then whether I like it or not, that’s the bottom line for me.