Thread by @DarthInternous

After all that tax nonsense, you all deserve a story. So…

*adopts announcer's voice*

Presenting the story of how I (unintentionally) nearly taught a class of 7th graders the meaning of the word “jailbait” and Star Wars saved me.

Not my finest moment. (1/17...here we go)

Before publishing, I was a teacher. I would long-term sub for teachers that had to be out for weeks or months at a time. In these cases, they needed someone to craft/execute lesson plans, not just have students watch a video. I'm overeducated so I can fill a lot of roles.

One assignment, I was asked to fill in for 3 weeks and teach poetry to middle-schoolers. I planned lectures on types of poems, and exercises for the kids to write their own poems. Then I stumbled on the best idea…

(Dear reader, this was NOT the best idea)

I would have the students read a poem I wrote, and discuss meaning, author intent, etc. They would have no idea I was the author until the end of the class when I would reveal the ruse, then give my interpretation as the writer.

What a cool way to teach them how readers can interpret an author’s work different from the author’s intention. This is awesome. It’ll be fun. And they’ll learn valuable lessons about how we interact with art, I thought.

So, I choose a poem. The poem was one I wrote in college. Which is to say, it was a bad poem. But easy to read. A poem about always leaving stories unfinished. It had a few turns of phrase that I thought the students would enjoy trying to decipher. But again, simple. Easy. Fine.

I read the poem over about 5 times making sure it was suitable. I thought it was. But I missed something. Not until the poem was on the screen as we read aloud did I notice the line from Watchmen “they accuse me of chasing jailbait.”
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.

Quick aside: Why the hell did I use that line? Listen, I could give you a bunch of bad reasons, but let’s skip that and just call me an idiot. Ok fine, I was trying to personify old stories mocking me about chasing new ideas. It was college, Watchmen movie came out, blah blah.

I told you it was a BAD poem. I am not, nor have I ever been, a writer of any skill. Unless you count tax protests. I’m pretty good at those.

You don’t?

Well, fine then, I’m a bad writer. Back to the story...

A boy in the back of class immediately asked “what’s jailbait?” There was, of course, NO good way to answer that question. As I fumbled to deflect, another boy in the front of class pulled out his phone and Google’d it.

Why did he have a phone? This boy had serious allergies. Every morning I had to clean and disinfect his chair/desk level serious. So, he was allowed a phone in case 911 or his family needed to be called no matter where he was. Anyway…

THE BOY STARTED TO READ THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD ALOUD BEFORE I COULD STOP HIM. He made it nearly to the BAD part of the definition - really, the whole definition is the bad part - before I confiscated the phone and mumbled some nonsense about a movie quote.

As you can imagine, the 7th graders were not going to let it go so easily. So I stated that it was not a good word, a word that only adults should use, and that if they promised to never say it, that we could watch Star Wars the next day instead of doing work. A desperate move.

A girl said, “Mr. H we can DO that? And when I assured her, YES we can, she replied “Cool. That’s what we were going to do in my basement all weekend anyway."

Which made me wonder if these kids have Star Wars parties and I was bummed I didn't have any Star Wars parties to go to.

As you can see this was a low point in my life. BUT IT WORKED. They immediately dropped it. And never said a word about it ever again. And guess what? We watched the hell out of Star Wars the next day and ate copious amounts of candy that I bought to sweeten the deal.

Moral of the story:

Star Wars is magic.

Review your work repeatedly before sharing it, and when you think you’ve read it enough read it 5 more times. Then read it aloud 3 times after that. At least.

Also don’t write poetry.

Or quote Watchmen to 7th graders.

/fin