I love having conversations with my students about their post-school plans. Some have definite plans. Others need help with their next steps. Then there is this conversation I had this morning.

Me: “So, what do you want to do when you get out of here?”

Student: “I’m getting tacos, maybe a torta.”

Me: “No, I mean when you graduate.”

Student: “Oh! I wanna move to California and be a lineman. They make a ton of money.”

Me: “That’s a great idea! We can research what you will need to do in order to get there.”

Student: “Then my BIG goal is to buy a big-ass house and throw a big-ass party. My mom will be so mad at me when I call to get bailed out!”

Me: “…”

Student: “Yeah, that’s my dream!”

Me: “I don’t think I can help researching that.”

I used to work in a bookstore that had a large academic section, selling textbooks and the like. It was situated near a large college campus, so we got a lot of customers for that section.

I remember when a college girl came in and purchased a crap ton of textbooks. It was way more than any student would reasonably need in a whole year.

Me: “Wow, are you opening your own bookstore?”

Customer: “Nope.”

She pays for the whole thing using a credit card (her name matched the ID), and then she carries all of them over to the buyback desk. This is where we buy back pre-purchased textbooks from students who have no more need of them.

Customer: “I’d like to sell these back to you, please.”

Me: “Uh, since you haven’t even left the building yet, if you need a refund—”

Customer: “—No, I don’t need a refund. I want to sell these back to you.”

Me: “But… you just bought them.”

Customer: “Yeah, but my parents cut me off.”

Me: *Confused look.*

Customer: “Okay, so they gave me spending money last semester, and they got really p***ed off with me because I spent it all, so they cut me off. They said no more money except for textbooks. So, here I am!”

Me: “But… I can only buy these books back at fifty cents on the dollar.”

Customer: “That’s plenty for my partying budget! Cash, please!”

What she was doing wasn’t illegal, so I bought the books back and gave her the cash she needed to party.

For the rest of the year, until I left that job, when she ran out of money, she’d just pick up a few more books, and she’d do the same thing. Apparently, her parents were none the wiser.

It’s 2008, and I am an exchange student from the Netherlands in a small town in Arkansas. I spent five wonderful months there, and I loved my time abroad, but I did get some interesting questions/statements…

Student #1: “You’re from the Netherlands? Ain’t that where Peter Pan’s from?”

She was also asked to point out Arkansas on a map and didn’t know where to find it…

Student #2: “Do they have fridges in Europe? Do they have roads? Do you have cars? Do you have UFOs?”

Student #3: “I’m flying back with you to the Netherlands, and then I’m flying to Amsterdam to smoke weed.”

Student #4: “But if the legal drinking age is sixteen, does that mean you’re drunk all the time?”

I’m teaching my class a basic geography lesson, and explaining why days and nights can vary in length throughout the year (and up here in Sweden, trust me, they vary quite a lot!). A student puts up his hand.

Student: “Sir, so you’re saying the poles of the Earth have extended periods of time where the sun never sets?”

Me: “Yes.”

Student: “The opposite pole has the opposite experience at the same time. They experience extended darkness?”

Me: “Yes.”

Student: “The latitude at which we live never has this occurrence.”

Me: “Also yes.”

Student: “Therefore, it follows logically that there is a latitude that is the average of these two extremes.”

Me: “Congratulations! You just discovered the equator!”

The class laughed, and the student looked embarrassed, but then I stopped them and said that the student had used logical reasoning to get to a part of the lesson I hadn’t taught yet, and they should all be doing that more instead of just blindly listening to what I had to say.

That same boy also surmised why we have seasons within seconds of my explaining that the Earth is tilted by 23.5° relative to the solar system’s orbital plane. He’s going places!

Related:
No Aptitude For Latitude, Part 4
No Aptitude For Latitude, Part 3
No Aptitude For Latitude, Part 2
No Aptitude For Latitude

I’m a physical education teacher, so I’m pretty much always wearing shorts when teaching.

Parent-teacher conferences roll around, and a first-grade student comes up to me with her parents:

Student: “Mr. [My Name], I’ve never seen you wear pants before!”

I’ve never responded quicker to a comment before in my life.