How Beavis and Butthead ruined my day

Okay, perhaps that is a bit dramatic.  They didn't ruin my day.  I actually like the show and think it is pretty funny.  If you didn't already know, Beavis and Butthead are back with brand new episodes on MTV.  I remember being a first year teacher, teaching 9th, 10th, and 11th grade when the show first came out.  That was about 15 years ago.  The boys in my classes loved the show.  The lines "heh, heh, she said __________" and "FIRE, FIRE FIRE!" were repeated over and over with glee.

Now the show is back and the fun has returned.  If you've ever spent much time with the average adolescent boy, you know that they are very hormonally driven.  For most of them sex is on their brains, even if they're not sharing it with you.  Beavis and Butthead are very much charicatures of the average teenage boy; after all, humor is best when it is based on a kernel of truth.

And that is how Beavis and Butthead have begun to make my days challenging.  Teenage boys are finding lots of scatological humor in things that really seem like normal everyday stuff to the average adult.  Through some random twist of fate, my students are about 66% boys; teenage boy humor permeates my days.  Yesterday's lesson was an example:  we learned about the rights, responsibilities, and duties of being and American citizen.  Each class I heard snickers of, "heh, heh, she said DUTIES." 

I have a class set of iPads, given to me as a part of a grant.  If you've ever used an iPad, you know that you tap things on the screen to get them to work (it is the equivalent of clicking things with a mouse on a regular computer.)  When demonstrating different apps, I've had to break myself of the habit of telling my students to "tap that" if I want to avoid a chorus of "heh, heh, she said tap that."

 The examples keep on coming:  caucus, Benedict Arnold (who my students insist on calling "Benedick"), privateers, Lake Titicaca and carpetbaggers.  Even simple words like score, ball, bang, nail, pole....they're all potential land mines. 

I've learned that it's not enough to be careful what I say; I have to learn to think like Beavis and Butthead if I want to make it through each day with any sort of classroom management!