on misspeaking and misunderstanding...

I let my chem kids make a notecard to use on the last test. As I was looking over one of them, I noticed that one of them must have been writing as I was talking about the "Law of Triads." He called it the "Love Triad."

Hah.

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Speaking of mis-speaking, I heard that one of the 10th graders was recently giving a presentation and kept referring to mathematicians as "mathemagicians." I suppose some math does require a lot of hand waving...

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As I was trying to get them to focus during math lab the other day, some of the 9th grade boys were having their own conversation...
FS: Seriously, do girls poop?
Clueless: I didn't know girls farted until I came to school here!

teehee...:)

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And one more that positively floored me today...Flava Flav was retaking a test he had failed. (This interaction helps me understand why he failed it...) I was letting him use his notes, and the interaction went something like this.

FF: Ms. Book, I can't find the answer for this question... "The pascal is the SI unit for ____________."
me (at my desk): That's in your notes right before the gas laws stuff, see the list that says "Three factors that affect gas pressure?"
FF: Yeah.
me: Look right above that.
FF: I don't see it.
me: Here (walking over to him, looking at his notes and pointing), read this.
FF: "Pressure- force per unit area
- units: pascals 1000 pascals = 1 kilopascal..."
me: Okay, stop. What are pascals the unit for?
FF: Pascals. They're the unit for pascals.
me: No. Read it again.
FF: Units?
me: No.
FF: Kilopascals?
me: Look, this is a bullet point. It says pressure is force per unit area, bullet point, units: pascals. What are pascals the unit for?
FF: Area?
me: We're talking about pressure! The bullet point is under pressure! What are pascals the unit for????

O.
M.
G.

Apparently he doesn't understand how bullet points work? All I know is that by the end of the interaction I had almost completely lost patience with him and was ready to strangle him with his binder. I don't know quite how that would work though...

While we're on this subject, the other thing that kills me is when a question says something like this:
7. Write how many electrons would be lost or gained from each of the following elements in order for the element to have an octet.
a. fluorine
b. phosphorus
c. magnesium
d. aluminum

As I'm checking homework, I notice one girl has written that the answer to 7 is b. When I question her on it, she claims to have not understood the question. Seriously kids. If you can read English, you can tell that this is a four part question and not multiple choice. Right? Or am I expecting too much of my seniors?

For the love...