Airy Fairy Science

Middle School | Learning | October 4, 2015

(My language arts teacher is loved by almost all of his students. As such, many students like to tick him off, because his reactions are always the best.)

Teacher: “So the prompt today is a little wordy.” *reading the board* “Due to a meteor that scientists have known about for months, there will be a solar eclipse for a year. Today is the last day of sunlight for a year, what do you do?” *turns to class* “So, this is not a story about the apocalypse, the earth is pretty much prepared for it. Life will be fine, and continue as normal. You will still have to go to school—” *he is cut off by a student raising his hand* “—Yes, [Student]?”

Student: “Wait, how could a meteor cause a total eclipse of the sun?”

Teacher: “It just does. It aligns with it or something.”

Student: “But the science makes no sense!”

Teacher: “I don’t see the problem here! Yesterday’s prompt was about all the shoes in the world suddenly gone! You guys didn’t question that!” *in a mocking voice* “Oh, it must have been the shoe fairies, because those aren’t implausible at all!”

Student #2: “Well, that makes sense; it could be a fantasy. But this is a bit stretched.”

Teacher: “Then it was the sun fairies. The sun fairies stole the sun.”

(By now all the kids are laughing.)

Teacher: “Fine, then. If you don’t want to write about that, I’ll give you something more realistic.” *he starts typing on his computer, which is being projected onto the board. we all watched as he wrote*

On Screen: “OR, WRITE ABOUT HOW ZEBRAS ATE YOUR FAMILY.”

(Needless to say, many of us wrote about the gruesome casualties resulting from docile zoo animals while our teacher sat there with his head on the desk, laughing.)

This story is part of the Eclipse roundup!