Neon

Since TAKS is over (this is where we jump for joy...we celebrated with ice cream in the teacher's lounge)...finally.  A full week of state standardized testing is no fun.  We had tornadoes rip through Tuesday, but luckily the weather had the courtesy to hold off until after the testing was done for the day to avoid having to follow the TAKS bad weather test protocol and shield the tests with our bodies to avoid any breach of test security (never mind the approaching tornado or impending doom).  We are also able to do all the cool, fun teaching in class for the last few weeks of school (what I wish we could do all year).  Yesterday my Chemistry classes got to play Periodic Table Bingo (you think it sounds miserable, but the kids had so much fun with it and got competitive).  We won't go into all the details of the game, but if you Google "periodic table bingo" you will get multiple versions of the game.  It's amazing the silly things that kids will get so inolved in, but it makes class so much more fun for kids and teachers when it's stress free learning (or, in this case, stress free reinforcement).  In my 7th period class there was a very funny exchange between students who were getting competitive that I'm sure I should have found offensive, but I ended up laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes because the whole incident caught me off guard.  The conversation went like this (I guess I need to explain the basic rules-the Bingo card has atomic #'s of their choosing 1-92, randomly written...they get a clue about an element-atomic mass, symbol, or description-and match the clue with the atomic number of that element on their Bingo card):

Me: this element is a Noble Gas commonly found in your favorite store's sign on the door.
Student 1: Neon!!
Student 2: Yeah, at the porno shop.
Student 1: What?!?  I didn't say that...I don't even know what that looks like!
Student 2: Yeah, right.  You said Neon.  You know.
Student 1: ::lost for words and looking to his friends for support of his defense::
Student 2: Uh-huh.  That's what I thought.
Me and all other kids: ::laughing::

She was so mad that he had Neon on his Bingo card and she didn't which actually made him "BINGO" for that round.  Some people think little kids say the funniest things, but teenagers, by far, say the funniest things.  This is minor compared to the hilarious things they say most days.  Teenagers are great entertainment.  Teaching teenagers has it's low points and those kids who hate the world and take out their world hatred on you or are completely defiant, but you can never complain about a dull day.  If only we could eliminate some of those behavior problems...