[NOTE: the following blog entry may only be funny either to those between the ages of 15 and 18, or to those who work with said age group.]
Sometimes class goes like this:
6th Period, last class of the day; both the students and I are dragging a bit, and we’re reviewing the previous night’s reading from Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart via students’ selected quotes and an informal, teacher-lead recitation.
One student has written the following quote on the board: “Yam, the king of crops, was a man’s crop.”
Mr. Forsyth: throwing in the emphasis as much as possible “So Okonkwo is this man’s man–he’s a farmer—and the yam is a man’s crop!”
Students snicker here and there in the room. Several grin at Mr. Forsyth, others roll their eyes.
Mr. Forsyth: honestly curious. What’s so funny? He’s a man—he believes—and the yam is a man’s crop.
More of the same from students.
Mr. Forsyth: Okay, each class today has laughed at that when I say it—and I realize I’m being a bit silly with it—but can someone let me in on the joke?
General silence for a moment. One brave student speaks up.
Brave Student: Mr. Forsyth, yam means ‘vagina’.
Students snicker again, watching for my reaction.
Mr. Forsyth: ‘Vagina?’
Brave Student: It’s like, ‘I’m going to go find me some yams tonight.’
General laughter at this students’ words, the recognition, and my fake-flustered look.
Lots of folks from outside of my school—as well as some students within the school itself—criticize the speech of my students. “Are you teaching them English?” they’ll ask, and I’ll have to launch into my explanation of code-switching, and how society decides whose speech is denigrated and whose is standardized. It’s about power and context-specific savvy, not about correctness.
Much of the vocabulary and grammatical structure of my students’ Black Speech (AAVE, Ebonics, whatever you want to call it) is wonderfully subversive. It’s designed to be a language of the hallways that (mostly) white teachers can’t catch. It has its roots in survival and subterfuge.
But sometimes the confusion can just be flat-out hilarious.
This quasi-performance has become a common trope of mine: act like the dorky clueless white dude, try to invite (in an admittedly small way) my students’ language into the classroom as a tool and as worthy of study, and laugh a little bit too when I put my foot in my mouth.
Because we all need a little chuckle now and then in the classroom, and because building relationships through curriculum is some of our most important educational work.