Conversations with my Students

If only I started this years ago, I'd have enough material for a novel by now.


Yesterday, I was teaching jazz to a group of junior and senior high school students. While they were practicing their dance, I yelled out a correction to 'Lift your sternum'. One girl stopped dancing, stared at me for a while, then bursts out laughing. She came over to me and whispered, 'I thought you said scrotum'.


Ironically, on Tuesday, I had an interesting conversation with the above mentioned student's younger sister. She's in 8th grade. Knowing that middle school students are often uncomfortable with their bodies, I chose to refer to boobs as 'the girls'. This usually makes the class laugh & they don't feel as awkward about whatever it is that I'm talking about. So anyway, I was trying to describe how I wanted the class to place their arm. I wanted the right arm to be bent at the elbow & reaching across the body with the wrist flexed. To sum that direction up quickly, I said 'frame the girls'. I didn't invent the phrase. Teachers have said the same thing to me a million times. I get it. It works. So, this student asks me 'Why do you call them girls? Why don't you just call them breasts or ta-tas or something? What if they want to be boys?' My response, 'Why would they be boys?'. She said 'I don't know'. I walked away.