mom, you're radical...

Another tale from the sixth grade special education world...the following is a real event that I experienced today. I must say that it is days like this that make me love my job.

We were wrapping up our poetry unit today and the students were putting their best poems into a little booklet to give to their moms on Mother's Day. Inevitably, the students included an acrostic poem using the word "mother" or "mom" in their booklets. We were encouraging them to use a thesaurus to look up good words to use.

With that in mind, a student (we'll call her K) walked over to me and the following conversation ensued:

K: [pointing to a word in the thesaurus] Mr. Davis, is this a good word to describe my mom?

Me: [with a puzzled, yet humored look on my face] K, I don't think "extremist" is a very good word to use in a poem about your mom. What made you think of that word?

K: [pointing to a synonym next to "extremist" in the thesaurus] Well, it says that "fantastic" is a synonym.

Me: K, that says fanatic, not fantastic!!!

K: Okay, Mr. Davis. You can get up off of the floor. It wasn't that funny.

So, I didn't really fall on the floor, but I came pretty close. I thought about calling her mom to share the funny story, but unfortunately her mother doesn't have that great of a sense of humor!