That was all the question contained. "IS IT TRUE ABOUT THE BEETS?!!!!!!!!!"
I have never mentioned beets in that class. Ever. Not once. In fact I don't think I've mentioned beets in any class I've ever taught in my life.
I asked Rob, and he said all he could think of was the episode of the Cosby Show where Rudy gets her period and her friends tell her that now she needs to eat beets every day to avoid a transfusion. But these kids weren't born yet when Cosby was on, and it's not playing in syndication around here... so I don't know.
I so WANT to know, though. I said in class today that whoever asked that question, I couldn't answer it because I didn't know what it meant, so they needed to leave me something with a bit more detail.
If they do, I will let you know.
If they don't I will languish forever, wondering who the anonymous root veg truth-seeker is, and what exactly it was they wanted to know.
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This message has been edited by jeez_louise on Jun 12, 2009 4:51 PM
This year, one of my seventh grade girls was singing a song that had "menage a trois" in the lyrics. I told her that wasn't appropriate to be singing at school. She asked why...she didn't know what it meant.
So there I was with a whole class of students asking me what it meant. I told them I wasn't going to talk about it; they could go ask their parents if they really wanted to know.
Apparantly, it was still a point of conversation the next day because they were still asking me about it. They had it in their heads it was some type of "bad word" because I wouldn't define it for them.
Finally, I called the main girl who was asking over to my desk and told her it wasn't exactly a bad word, but it had a sexual meaning, and it wasn't really appropriate to talk about it at school.
That seemed to satisfy her.
At least until she got home and asked her big sister
Jo, here, up until 6th grade, they're kept separate for the sex ed stuff. Then in 7th, it's coed, and they're TERRIFIED. It's all either extremely silent, or very giggly. We mainly learn about puberty, the reproductive organs, the menstrual cycle, and (OMG!) sperm production and ejaculation, and they seriously want to crawl under their desks the whole time. That's where the anonymous question box comes in - I get everybody in the class to write something on the piece of paper, so that no one is singled out for putting a question in. Most of what I get in the grade 7 questions are "Hi Madame, how are you?" with a few questions here and there about things we've actually talked about in class.
In 8th grade, we review the stuff from 7th grade (with more detail about the reproductive systems), and also cover fertilization/conception and childbirth (including a video that I saw when I was in 8th grade, called "Giving Birth" - that's next week! Oh we're all so excited!). When it comes to the question box, they LOSE THEIR MINDS. "If a lady has sex with a dog will she have puppies or babies or half and half?" "If you cut open a testicle and put it inside a vagina, will the sperm escape and make the girl pregnant?" "IS IT TRUE ABOUT THE BEETS?!" The beets, they haunt me.
In 9th grade it's, again, a review of the grade 7 and 8 stuff, plus STI's, and contraception. They had their condom presentation on Friday (where they got to put a condom on a wooden penis! And the health nurse and I had to go around helping them! And then we had to take the "used" condoms back from them because some of them were trying to smuggle them out to use as balloons later! "Buy your own!" I said). They pretty much figure they know everything so they calm down again with the question box, and mostly if they want to know anything, they feel comfortable enough asking in class. Except for a couple of guys who think it's funny to put questions in the question box asking me to detail how exactly a sex change operation is performed, with slides, please.
see now 'the secret knowledge of beets' will plague me.
I will interrogate Linds to see what tales come from the beets .
Lindsay's classes were separated until this year. I'm good with that because at least we know the boys are getting the same info as the girls and that it's a topic that concerns everyone. Where I worry is the fact that with boys there, it'll be so giggly that they don't learn much.
STI's were a major part of this year's grade 7 classes.
STI's in all their full-colour glory.
Linds was 'aghast' at those.
FYI Louise, this year Lindsay received a pretty in depth booklet from beinggirl.ca (Tampax) about puberty, hygiene, sexual terminology (for their age) and it wasn't all sterile-boring-government looking so it would interst the kids. Also each girl received their own package of feminine hygiene products and a how-to book in case they had questions.
Free to schools I would guess, and a win-win sitch for Tampax as spin-off future purchases will occur. Maybe Louise you could get ahold of their PR person and see if you can get some 'swag'.
Beets are not listed in the booklet just so you know.
ETA: So far, during the male reproduction stuff, the boys are so embarassed that girls are learning about their stuff, that they keep quiet, and the girls are so embarassed that the boys know that the girls know about their stuff, that they keep quiet. And same with the female reproductive system. So I think they'll be okay. They just giggled a little at the "Puberty: Amazing Changes Inside And Out" videos, because there were some funny moments.
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This message has been edited by jeez_louise on Jun 13, 2009 7:23 PM
Wow. All my school system did was show us a one hour presentation of nasty diseases we could catch. And they didn't even show it until our senior year. That's it.
And I got nothin on the beets thing...
"I don't really know, but I suspect the addition of nuts."
Ha! We got a swag package at my school. But I am so old that ours was from Kotex and included some sort of chastity belt that hooked up to a big stuffed sock looking thing. Yeah, even back then I didn't want anything to do with "pads." Blech.
Now that I am incontinent, I have a differing opinion.
My son refused to talk about his sex ed class (6th grade). But he did start using the deoderant that came in the swag package with a diligence he rarely has for hygiene.
Linds loves Monty Python almost as much as I and we will watch clips/shows/movies together. I'd bought Meaning of Life, forgetting every single sketch until I was in the kitchen and overheard ...
"vaj EYE null juices" as only Cleese could announce.
