Thing 1, Thing 2 & Fish Clappers

(Writers note: This post was featured first on Technorati this week. Please excuse my lateness and my laziness for not posting something different, but I’ve been battling high school germ cooties. Despite my Clorox wipes, Lysol spray and hand sanitizer, I still feel as if I’m living in a petri dish.)

In my little world, Friday brings two things. For fun, let’s call these things “Thing 1” and “Thing 2.”

Thing 1… Every Friday morning, I reward myself for surviving the week with my requisite nonfat, three raw sugar latte. If you’ve ever had the privilege of teaching in a high school, you’re probably saying, “Amen sister!” right about now. (A few of you may even be ordering a double shot of something.)

Thing 2… Somewhere along the way I thought it would be a fabulous idea to institute a weekly Current Events Day. (After all, I teach a journalism class.)

Friday’s class goes something like this… The kiddos bring in an article that interests them. Each kid talks about his article. Then other kids comment about the article. Then we all applaud with these nifty little fish clappers I purchased on line.

Sometimes, though, the comment portion makes me just want to whack myself in the head with those fish clappers. Last week I smacked myself twice. One kid tried to convince the rest of us that President Obama won two Nobel Peace Prizes, and another kid, like, used the word, like, oh, I don’t know, like, about 20 times in, like, 20, like, seconds. (I bet you’re, like, wanting to borrow those clappers, like, right about now.)

But besides those two minor incidents, most of the class brought in two articles that mirrored the buzz around the nation. For fun, we’ll call these things “Thing 1” and “Thing 2.”

Thing 1… The story of the 6-year-old Colorado boy who was thought to have been inside a wayward weather balloon, but was later found hiding in his family’s garage attic.

Thing 2… The story of a 6-year-old New York Cub Scout who was suspended from school for bringing his little Cub Scout camping utensil to eat his lunch.

In Thing 1, my journalism kids pretty much agreed with the buzz across the nation that a family who appears on a reality show like “Wife Swap,” claims to have flown alien spaceships in a previous life, and then makes the media circuit (even though their kid throws up twice) is probably just a tad to the left of crazy. Even the kids questioned whether the ordeal was a publicity stunt before the sheriff’s department announced that charges would be filed in the incident.

In Thing 2… Some in the class argued in favor of leaving cute little Zachary alone and putting him back in school. Others favored punishing the 6 year old. It’s the old Zero Tolerance faction pitted against the Use Discretion and Common Sense faction.

Just like in the national arena, we didn’t resolve the Zero Tolerance issue either, but at least, we got to use the fish clappers and dispel the two Nobel Peace Prize rumor.

Now about that “like” thing. Well, that’s going to take, like, more then, like, my clapping fish and one Friday to handle. Let me, like, get back to you on that one.