Hangman? Hang the kid!

For the last two months, I have been using a table-group points system to encourage the students to speak French in class. If the total class score is above the previous month's score, they get to choose a fun thing to do. As the beginning of March was fairly hecktic, we chose to have a party for February's reward, but push it over to the last Friday before Spring Break (this afternoon). The students couldn't come to a consensus about whether they wanted a movie or a PJ party, so one of them suggested we do both: A pyjama party movie afternoon - with popcorn of course!

Accordingly yesterday evening I went to the video rental store to find an appropriate movie for the kids to watch. Knowing that the VCR on our floor tends to chew up video tapes, I made sure to rent a DVD instead. Imagine my surprise, irritation and horror when I discovered that someone had again stolen the RCA cables that link the DVD player to the TV! As I had a parent who happened to be there, she offered to run home and get her own cables to see if we could get things going. The students were all ready, and, having already eaten all the popcorn, were getting restless in their flannels!

While we waited for the mother to come back, I started a game of hangman on the chalkboard as a distraction. When she came in with her DVD cables, I handed my chalk to one of the students, and went to see about where the cables belonged. We tried every possible combination of holes that fit, but with an antique TV and the wrong cables, it appeared that the movie would be a no-go. Just as we were coming to that realisation, I heard several students exclaiming "OH EDWARD! YOU'RE DISGUSTING!" I looked up to see the word that Edward, having commandeered the chalk, had chosen for the game:

M A S T E R B A I T

Our eyes met.

"EDWARD!!"

He froze, crystalized grin falling to pieces on the floor.

"FIRST OF ALL, YOU SPELLED IT WRONG. SECOND OF ALL, GET OUT!"

I explained to the class that the DVD cables were duds, and that we'd all go outside to play in the field instead. They were overjoyed to be able to do this in their PJ's. As they packed up their things in the class, I followed Edward in the hall. He was blubbering!

"I didn't know what it was, I swear! I still don't know what it means. I just heard my friends using it." he sniffed fearfully.

I told him sternly that even if he didn't know what it meant, he obviously knew it was something innappropriate, or he wouldn't have put it on the board with that silly grin. He thought about that a moment, and then quizzically asked "What does it mean, anyways?"

Now, teacher or not, I was not going to spend the last Friday before Spring Break explaining sexuality to a mischevious ten-year-old in the school hallways!

"Ask your parents what it means. Then ask them why you shouldn't have chosen that word for a classroom game of hangman."