Language Is Hard
Australia, Elementary/Primary School, Mental Health, New South Wales, Rude & Risque, Sydney, Wordplay | Learning
| August 20, 2026
I am teaching a class of ten-to-eleven-year-old children. We are doing an art activity, and I am letting them pick which medium they want to use for their art piece. One of the students is on the autism spectrum, and he doesn’t always understand non-literal interpretations of phrases.
He is going through the charcoal pencils, which are graded in terms of softness.
Student: “[My Name, My Name!] I got hard!”
Me: *Glaring at the students who have started giggling.* “I’m glad you found the pencil you wanted. Now let’s talk about how you might want to rephrase that in the future…”
