Joel Brigham – Where Curiosity Meets Comedy

From Kirbs, the foods teacher:

Odd conversation with Nikki…

Nikki: “Good news! My dog is feeling better.”
Me: “Oh good.”
Nikki: “But, my kitty has herpes and tonsillitis. And they both can easily be passed to humans.”

Some gems from Donna’s autobiographical alphabet assignment in Creative Writing:

G is for Ghost: “When I was eight, I lived in this trailer on a hill. In the room in the very back of the trailer, the room with the ghost, my sister would sit and play with her toys before a big mirror. If you were lucky and very quiet, you could sneak up to the door and hear her little voice talking to herself. At first we thought he was an imaginary friend, and then she said his name. The same name of the little old man who died in that room before the previous owner bought the place.”

I is for Insane Clown Posse: “They are considered horror-core music artist are one of my favorite bands. I wear my hatchetman bracelet proud to be a part of their family of friends. They call us Juggalos and Juggalettes. Some people call us a gang. We’re not a gang.”

R is for Random: “I once screamed, ‘I don’t wanna get naked with the bears and stop trying to stick that in me,’ while in the middle of a discussion about cancer with my friend Katie.”

Andy: “I call my step-mom Hitler sometimes. Like, she’ll ask me to do the dishes, and I’ll be like, ‘Whatever. Hi, Hitler.’” (I think he meant to say “Heil”…)

From Nick’s Transcendentalism test: “Ralph Waldo Emerson was a character created by Henry David Thoreau.”

From Daniel’s Gothicism test: “Dr. Heidegger’s experiment was to give people the special water to see if they will still have the same nolage when they turn young again.”
(Part of being old, apparently, is knowing how to spell “knowledge.”)

From Karen’s Gothicism test: “Grierson diluted herself into thinking she had a bond with her dead husband.”

From Hewitt: “Okay, we’re going to head-on park into that open spot just before the station wagon.”
Janine: “What’s a station wagon?”

Me, to my second block English 2 class: “Remind me, what year were the slaves freed?”
Wesley, immediately: “18… no… 1937.”
Me, laughing at him because he just meant that incorrect answer so much: “No, Wes. Not 1937.”
Wesley: “Well, it was in the 1900’s though, wadn’t it?”
Me: “1937 is just a few years away from World War II, bud. No, it’s not 1937. Anybody else want to venture a guess?”

Wesley, discussion alternate ways to conceive a child: “Couldn’t they just use infertile semination?”

Kids are doing some practice on lay vs. lie, and this is what I overhear:

Phil: “Hey Jaymie, what’d you get for #4?”
Janine: “I got ‘laid.’”

Larry: “Wasn’t Abraham Lincoln the first president…”
Wesley: “Nope, he was 16th.”
Larry: “Let me finish, Wes, geez. The first president to be photographed?”
Wesley: “No, because I know I’ve seen a picture of George Washington before.”
Hailey: “Those are paintings.”
Wesley: “Are they?”

Clark: “Is ‘jew’ a pronoun?”
Me: “No it is not.”

Me, after spelling out a creative writing assignment for my seniors: “…And that’s it. Does anybody have any questions?”
Daryl, being funny: “Where do babies come from?”
Me: “Well, when a man loves a woman… he calls the stork.”
Brandon: “Yes, but where do stork babies come from?”
Me: “Sex. Two storks have sex.”

From one of Charlie’s short stories: “It was a bright sunny day on the playground. Every kid ran around as if their pants were on fire. Recess was the pentacle of my day.”

From Donna’s Life Soundtrack assignment:

“I gave my older brother the nickname Skitz the Psychopathic Scarecrow.”

“When I’m sad, I like to think of dead bodies climbing out of the ground, looking around, and then breaking out into a dance.”

“Boondox may be a country-styled wicked clown rapper, but he knows how to make a song remind you of the loved ones who have passed.”

From a Melvin short story entitled, “Black or White”:

“Was it going to come out black or what was the real question. Her being a white female and her husband being a white male would make for a nice little white kid. However, If there was an incident, that would make her have a black baby, it could be kind of a strain on her relationship with Phil.

“She tries to rationalize it in her brain, thinking about how she has had sex with Phil two times that week and once with the black man, so she has double the chance it will come out white. Or so she tells herself.”

From Hewitt:

Liz brings Kep and I milkshakes 5th block. Anthony says, “Whats in that? It looks good.” I reply, “Ice cream, it’s a milkshake.” He then says, “Milkshakes don’t have ice cream in them, that must be something else.” I counter with a question, “Anthony, who makes your milkshakes for you?” He says, “You know restaurants and such, they’re just too smooth to have ice cream in them.” Instead of telling him about the new appliance referred to as a blender, I merely smile, nod my head and think of the people I will email this conversation to.

From Brandon’s Creative Writing test:

Question: “What are three things a writer can do to create suspense in his or her story?”
Brandon’s Answer: “Withhold information, give things a sense of ambiguity, and write, ‘Or was it?’ a lot.”

From Heyward’s English journal:

“My plan is ready for effect. I may just be paranoid, but if I’m in the right, I am going to have fun. I think the zombie virus is a mutation of the immune system. With all the sicknesses at Olympia, a mutation would have time to evolve. Thus, the girl who bit my friends may not be the originator, but her immune system let the virus in, making her the first of the zombies. The invasion is coming. It’s only a matter of time.”

I asked my creative students to practice writing leads by using famous movies as inspiration. Here’s James’s for “Titanic”: “As the sun rises it is a new day for the special people on the most biggest and funnest ship in the world.”

My “The Great Gatsby” study guide question: “What indications are there that the green light will have a powerful emotional significance to Gatsby”?
Russell’s answer: “It’s a time machine.”

Andy: “Brigs, what’s that dance called where everybody’s on rollerblades and you just all grab on to each other?”
Me: “I have no idea what you’re talking about right now.”

Mandy: “I’m not good at writing scripts. I mean, I’ve never written one before, but I’m assuming I will be.”

Brian: “Mr. Brigham, did people in the 1830’s have heart attacks?”

In a five-minute span, Wesley just used the word “agilitable” and multiplied 30 and 300 to get 30,000.

Wesley, after getting berated by the kids for not being able to say “parabola” right: “Leave me alone, it’s just because of my slow head.”
Me, teasing Wes as I always do: “Yes, your head is certainly slow.”
Wesley, slightly overweight, who’s been asking me to race him all year: “But my feet aren’t.”
Me: “But your metabolism is.”

Carlos: “Mr. Brigham, have I told you lately that I loved you? I mean, like, in a plutonic way?”
Me: “I think you mean platonic. Plutonic means ‘of Pluto.’”
Carlos: “Well, then I love you on Pluto.”
Me: “That’ll work.”

Sam totally unprovoked: “You shouldn’t go to Wal-Mart.”
Becky Meissner, the German teacher: “Because… they have unethical business practices?”
Sam, totally serious: “Because if there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, that would definitely be a hotspot.”

An email from another teacher (only at Olympia): “I recently got a side of beef and ended up with the heart & tongue. Would it be appropriate to send an all school email and see if someone would take it off my hands?”

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That’s it for this year’s student quote.  More in about twelve months!  Thanks for reading!

More student quotes.  I’ll have Part 3 (the last installment) up soon:

Charlie, the main character in the book “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” is reading Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” Charlie likes the book, but I told my students that it’s kind of long and boring. Later, privately, Joey Nolan and I have the following conversation about the book:

Tony: “So you think that book, ‘Fountainhead’ or whatever, is pretty boring.”
Me: “Yeah, It’s not my favorite.”
Tony: “So like, there’s no vampires or lichens or anything like that in it?”
Me, laughing: “No. No vampires in Ayn Rand.”

Me, to my English 2 class in general: “You guys really have not taken good care of these text books this year. And that sucks, because these things are like $50 a pop to replace.”
John: “Well, that’s not that much.”
Me: “But when you have to buy 100 of them, it starts adding up.”
Jay: “Yeah, that’s like, $500.”

Then, not five minute later…

Me: “I had to write a 50-page paper for my senior seminar course in college.”
Edward: “That would suck to grade.”
Me: “Yeah, but that’s why there’s only 12 students in the class.”
Jay: “That’s still like 6,000 pages.”

Tony tried convincing me today that his brother read “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” when it came out in one hour.

Me: “No, he didn’t.”
Tony: “Well, maybe two hours then. Or maybe it was in one day.”
Me: “Yeah, there were a lot of people who read it in one day. That I believe.”
Tony: “Yeah, he reads like twelve books a day.”
Me, exasperated: “Really?”
Tony: “Yup, everyday. He just gets up at like 4:00 and goes to the library and then reads all day. He’s ready every book in the Minier Library. They have to order more for him.”
Me, rolling my eyes: “That’s unbelievable.”
Tony: “I know, right?”

Rich was asked to write a sentence using the idiom “fight tooth and nail.” This is what he came up with: “The Bears and Broncos were fighting tooth and nail until Tebow used God to win.”

Me: “What, who is Andy dating now?”
Andy: “Melissa Smith.”
Teri: “Does Melissa know?”

Ron just took his peer editing with him to the bathroom to work on while he goes #2. This is not a quote, but it is hilarious.

Sally: “I had a crazy dream last night, Mr. Brigham. It was a Star Wars dream where everybody was coming at me with light sabers, except they were [toilet] sabers.”
Me: “Toilet sabers?”
Sally, really annoyed: “No, toy light sabers. Geez, Mr. Brigham.”

Jared: “I want to be an Aztec. I want to sacrifice human beings and worship the glowing ball in the sky.”
Me: “Why?”
Jared: “Because everything is too complicated. I don’t want a cell phone. I don’t want a Facebook. I want the leader of our country to be the guy who kills the most people.”

The kids, getting upset with Jared because he’s shooting down everybody’s ideas about how to make a fortune in the world: “Okay Jared, how would you make a million dollars.”
Jared, without hesitation and absolutely serious: “I would sell drugs.”

Later: “Drugs are addicting and tax-free. It just makes sense to sell them. I mean, they’re addictive and they hurt people, but you know what I’m saying.”

From Jill Uhlman: “Matthew has informed me that he is building a life size wooden puppet for his trip to Comicon this summer. He also said he is going to wear it to his Explorers conference that he will also be attending this summer. I asked how he was going to build it and he said wood, string, and luck… he has some plans drawn up.”

From a worksheet about reading William Bradford’s “On Plymouth Plantation” as a primary source for information on the first Thanksgiving:

My question: As described by Bradford, what foods were included in the real first Thanksgiving?
Mack’s answer: “Fish, turkey, Indian corn.”
My next question: What traditional Thanksgiving foods are missing?
Mack: “Fish.”

Jessica, answering a question about Columbus’s diary after landing in America for the first time: “The people of the land, the Natives, will be used ass servants, thus making Columbus an undeniable success.”

From Hewitt: “Kelsey, I really like your sweater with the cat sewed onto the front of it.”
Kelsey: “It’s from Korea. It’s not even made in America.”

From Kirby:

My kids had to fill out some questions yesterday about why they eat what they eat. One of the questions is an open-ended one and only states, “Nutrition is…” and they fill in whatever it means to them. Elise, who I assume is not joking, answers with “Pickles.”

Uh, what?

Brendan using the vocabulary word “nostalgic” in a sentence: “I’m nostalgic about playing with my dead dog.”

From Cahill: Many students in my Spanish class did not realize we didn’t have school on Monday (Martin Luther King Day) and many didn’t know why. One student knew why…

Michelle: “I know why! It’s JFK Day.”
Cahill: “You got the last initial right.”

Marty: “Wouldn’t it be cool if lasers could, like, cut through stuff?”

Chad: “Mr. Brigham, is ‘fajita’ a Spanish word?”
Me: “Yes it is.”
Chad, to Patrick, with whom he’d previously been having an argument about this very topic: “See, Patrick. I told you. How do you not know this? You’re in Spanish class.”
Patrick, totally serious: “Sorry. We haven’t learned the word for that yet.”
Chad: “I’m pretty sure the Spanish word for ‘fajita’ is ‘fajita,’ Justin.”

Darlene, answering some questions about the vocabulary word “accolade”:

List a few accolades you would like to earn or win.
Darlene: “One for a great written book and for helping with the orphans.”

Write a sentence using the word accolade.
Darlene: “I received many accolades for my well-written horror book, “Evil in the Cradle.”

A Matthew gem from Jill Uhlman: Today as students were getting ready to do their silent reading I invited them to get “comfortable”. Matthew said, “It’s for times like these that I always carry a pillow with me.” He proceeded to pull out a pillow, lay on the floor and read. Always prepared for the unexpected.

Then, a dynamite drop-in from art teacher Mike Morris: He had previously brought this pillow out in my class and began to explain that other students find it strange that he carries a pillow around, to which he would reply, “Have you ever thought that I think you’re strange for not carrying a pillow around?” What a way to look at the world.

Hewitt: Today on lunch duty I told seven freshmen/sophomores “The nurse’s office is not a lounge, get out. You’re not sick. You want to know how to get sick? Hang out in here.”

From one of Jill Uhlman’s sophomores writing a persuasive essay:
This students chose the topic: Taking soldiers out of Iraq
His audience was President Obama
This is the closure to his paper: “If you don’t understand why all of this is not a good thing. Then
you need to go to the doctor’s and get some since knocked into you.”
I did not alter this text at all.

It’s everybody’s favorite time of year: stupid student quotes! The names have been changed to protect the under-18, but enjoy!

Chandra’s sample sentence for negligible: “Oboration is a major decision in someone’s life.”

Brian: “Mr. Brigham? Would it be okay if instead of putting my name on my papers, I just put the Batman symbol and you could just know that it was mine?”
Me, laughing: “No.”

Carly, answering a question on an English test: “She was going to make him look like a human bean.”

Some of Dave’s racist and insensitive gems from a test about the book “Monster” and the movie “Boyz N Da Hood”:

Q: Describe in as much details as you can the crime that has taken place and of which Steve is allegedly a part.
Doug’s Answer: “A group of sketchy coloreds rob a drug store.”

Q: Brandi, Tre’s girlfriend, is a minor character but really seems to be a nice person. Aside from that, how else does she help Tre get through his hard times?
Doug’s Answer: “Sex.”

From Travis’s persuasive essay about getting a later curfew: “It’s not like your kids have ever come home with anything bad like a dead cat or dog or have even done anything remotely that bad.”

“It clearly says in the second amendment that we have the right to bear arms.”
-Ron’s persuasive essay. (Those are better than T-Rex arms, I guess).

“Guns of all kinds are inadament objects.”
-More from Ron. (I’d argue that some guns are, in fact, pretty assertive.)

From Kirbs, the Home Ec teacher, on “Halloween Day” during Homecoming Week:

Vicki comes busting into my room this morning in a very frantic manner….

Vicki: “Do you have a cape in here?!”
Kirbs: “Uh, what? No, sorry kiddo, no capes here.”
Vicki:”Well I really need one for my costume today and my brother told me I could find one here.”
Kirbs: “Sorry, no capes in the Foods room.”

I thought I heard Jared say a curse word, for which the punishment in my class is pushups.
Me: “Ten push-ups, Jared.”
Jared: “I didn’t cuss!”
Everybody else: “He really didn’t.”
Me: “Thought I heard a cuss word, my fault.”
Jared: “It’s okay. I can’t do push-ups anyway.”
Me: “Why not?”
Jared: “Because I have a bad shoulder. I really do, and I really can’t do pushups.”
Someone else: “Then you’ll have to do sit-ups if you ever get caught cussing.”
Jared: “No, I can’t do those either?”
Me: “Why not?”
Jared: “I have a weak stomach.”

Jared: “I’m not generally in favor of tattoos, but have you seen that guy who got tattoos and facial implants and stuff to look like a tiger? I’ve thought about doing that.”

From a quiz over Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”

Question: What color were the walls and windows in the room everybody was afraid to visit?
Correct answer: Everything was black except the windows, which were red.
Jay’s answer: Velvet.

Question: What happens to Prince Prospero at the end of the story?
Correct answer: He is killed by the Red Death.
Sheri’s answer: He is killed and taken to jail.

From art teacher Traci Manning, who started working at a different school this year but still keeps in touch with the occasional student gem:

We are starting our calligraphy project, and I did my whole deal and told them to bring in part of a saying or song or poem. One of my special ed kids asks if he can make one up. Sure, I say. He shows it to me, and I can only read the first two lines because I’m afraid I’m going to laugh out loud, so I just tell him that will be fine. His name is Jimmy.

“Jimmy is a beast. Jimmy is a beast.”

She’d send us the rest of the poem later in the week:

Jimmy is a beast. Jimmy is a beast.
Jimmy is so cool yeah yeah
Jimmy has the cool-is friends
say what yeah you hear me.

Jared, to Andy, who’s using scissors to cut a loose string off his shirt: “What are you doing?”
Andy: “What do you mean, what am I doing?”
Jared, after a beat: “I don’t know if I can make that any clearer.”

From Ron’s transcendentalism paper: “Chris McCandless adventured into the great white north and lived there completely on his own, until he ate some poison barriers and that ended it for him.”

From Dustin’s: “They formed what has become a widespread religion, mostly because they wanted to get away from consecutive Puritanism.”

Jared: “I wouldn’t say we’re arch-nemeses. I mean, I like Kevin and everything. Well… okay, I like Kevin, but I don’t like him a lot. I’ll put it this way. I need Kevin.”

“Who I Want to Meat”
-The title of one of Jay’s blog entries

Teri: “Rapper has two p’s in it, right? I don’t want to write that I want to be a famous raper.”

Without provocation, Sally offered up this little story today. Keep in mind that there was no warm-up for this conversation, just boom, here ya go, Brigs:

Sally: “My friend’s dad finally got his ring off his finger.”
Me: “Okay… why was her dad trying to take his ring off?”
Sally: “To get it resized.”
Me: “I guess that makes sense.”
Sally: “Yeah, apparently it took a lot of olive oil and a certain type of gel you probably don’t want to know about to get it off.”
Me: “That’s a good story.”
Sally, silent, nods her head and wanders away…

From Marshall’s abortion essay: “I think it’s a life when it comes out of the whom or you name it. I do not think when it’s all goo-like it’s considered a life. When it has at least one foot it is considered a life.”

Dylan: “I’m pretty sure Chip ‘n Dale dancers have been around since like the 1860s.”

How does Nick spell the word “miserable”? Like this: “mizzuruble.”

A gem from Hewitt, teaching middle school P.E.:

8th grader Kyle: Mr. Hewitt, you ever had polio?
Me: Nope, got vaccinated for that as a baby.
Kyle: You ever had black plague?
Me: Nope, I’m clean.

Sally walks into class absolutely irate, slams her binder onto her desk, and slumps down into her chair.

Me: “Something eatin’ atcha, kiddo?”
Sally: “Samuel drives me crazy sometimes.”
Me: “Well, brothers have a way of doing that sometimes. What’d he do?”
Sally: “He’s been wearing my father’s boots lately.”
Me, not seeing what is so anger-inducing about this: “Okay?”
Sally, really getting worked up: “He says they’re too heavy, so he’s been compensating by lengthening his stride.”
Me, trying really hard not to sound condescending: “Oh, yeah. Well… yeah, I can see how could be frustrating.”

We’re reading “The Perks of Being A Wallflower” in English 4 Life, so in their first worksheet I asked them to look up “perk” and “wallflower” in the dictionary, then tell me what the title suggested the book may be about. A couple of them kind of missed the point:

Jordan: Perk = to raise. Wallflower = bloom. What will the book be about? Sex and drugs.

Brandy: Perk = to be raised really good and be smart in appearance. Wallflower = different number of flowers in any color. What will the book be about? Someone being raised really good and has a family member who plants flowers.

From Kirbs, the Home Ec. Teacher:

My kids are working on making paper bag puppets for something in our Child Development unit. I tell Hannah, “What a beautiful little puppet you have, he kinda looks like you.” Her response, “Uh. He’s a pedophile.”

Whoops.

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I’ve got plenty more, just head back in a couple days for more goodies!