Classroom quips, 10-13-10

As I've shared before, this has been a rough year so far in the life of this Special Ed. teacher. I took some time over my 2-week break and prayed over what to do about it. God gave me a few specific ideas, and already the first two days after returning from break have been far better. I'm back in the driver's seat, which means I'm in a generally better mood, which means I've been able to enjoy the kids more.

So with this good news as the backdrop, I present the first classroom quips from the 2010-2011 school year, all of which happened today.


Mr. Stipp: Does anyone know what a miner is?
Javier: Yeah. Like if I win $50,000 in Gold/Cash prizes from the gas station, they'd probably take it away  because I'm a minor.


Henry (reading out loud): Ovary and Wilbur Wright were born in Dayton, Ohio.



Mr. Stipp: Stephen, why were you absent yesterday
Stephen: Oh, I fell out of a tree.

classroom quips, 5-3-10

Suriel: I hate sensible people.

Mr. Stipp: Hmm, me too. Why do you hate them?

Suriel: Ya know, they're always getting their feelings hurt.



This next one's from home, not school.

My three year old, Eli, has the unfortunate combination of a scab on his knee, a speech impediment, and red-green color blindness.

Eli: Daddy, I gotta ouchy it huwts so bad. It's wight thewe on my knee. It's gween, gween, gween, or wed, wed, wed!

classroom quips, 3-9-10

Antonio: Hey, Mr. Stipp, we got big problems at home. Our power went out. Someone's at the house fixing it right now.

Mr. Stipp: (with all the sarcasm I could muster) Oh no, what did you watch instead of TV?

Antonio: Oh, it was no problem. My dad has a DVD player in the van, so we just went out and watched that.

Disaster Averted. Whew.

a few more classroom quips

Part of the deal with teaching special ed. is you have kids working way below their potential, not just in a skill like reading, but in analytical thinking. A lot of my job is waking kids from their mental slumbers. One way I do this is by asking them questions that require active thinking. Because it's true that if you expect kids to respond intelligently consistently, most will. I actually had a kid who'd been with me two years tell someone else, "man, when i came to this class, i used to be retarded."

So in asking kids some questions I get some off-the-wall answers from kids who think they're retarded. Like these:

Mr. Stipp: Where do babies go to the bathroom.
(students responded in rapid fire)
student 1: in the toilet
student 2: outside
student 3: in the kitchen
student 4: in the diaper bag

Mr. Stipp: Is 47 closer to 40 or 50?
student 5: (exuberantly) yes!!!

Mr. Stipp: Write about what you want to do when you grow up:
student 6: Mr. Stipp, how do you spell FBI?

Mr. Stipp: I want to talk about the word "voyage." Does anyone know what "voyage" means?
student 4: (as if he's meeting me half-way) I know what aluminum foil is.

classroom quips, November, 2008

In a diabetes in-service, a teacher asked the facilitator what "hello" means on the test meter. The facilitator corrected the teacher that meters do no say "hello," but "hi," meaning that the child's blood sugar is over 500.

This was about the time I decided to start watching "The Office."

classroom quips, 2-5-07

One day Ismael did a really bad impromptu rap for the class.

Mr. Stipp: Wow, Ismael, that was a great rap. Did you write it?

Ismael: No, I made it up.

classroom quips, 1-10-07

Dan Burke is a white Illinois Congressman, whose seat is being challenged by Rudy Lozano, a Mexican American from Little Village. The majority of the people in Dan Burke's constituency are hispanic, which is why some people think it will be hard for him to win.

Yesterday I had this conversation:

me: Jose, what did you do during the break?

Jose: I made a commercial

me: wow, what was the commercial about?

Jose: I don't know. Me and my brother just said, "thank you, Dan Burke" for the camera. Who's Dan Burke?

classroom quips, 9-12-07

Ismael: hey Vince, spell I CUP

Vince: I (long pause) C (long pause) O...

classroom quips, 9-6-07

I teach special ed. to 4th and 5th graders. My students say funny things.

Here's one from 9-6-07.


me: You'll understand when you're 27.
Luis: Man, we wont be 27 'til like 2009!