Little Fockers

On Thursday after class one of my students came up to me and said:

“What does F***ers mean?”

To which I replied “EXCUSE ME???”

And he repeated…after which I said “Umm, I’m sorry, where did you learn that word and why do you keep saying it? It’s a REALLY bad word so please stop using it”

Martin: “Really? But it’s the name of a movie – Little Fockers”
Me: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (and in my head thinking…BEN STILLER WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME???)

I told my student that it was a bad word and that he shouldn’t use it, but that I didn’t want to explain what it meant. By now I had a crowd of about 5 of my kids standing around me saying “C’MON what does it mean? If you don’t tell us we’re gunna say it anyway! AND we'll tell them YOU told us it was ok to use!”

Great. What kind of position does that put me in? I don’t want to be the person who tells my students what a bad word means…but if I don’t tell them they’re going to use it anyway…and most likely offend a lot of people. What choice did I have? So I told them…begrudgingly. It was SO awkward to explain that to my 16 and 17 year old students! And then told them that now that they KNEW what it meant I NEVER wanted to hear that word used ever again. AND that I never wanted to hear them telling other kids “YOU KNOW JESSICA?? *SHE* IS THE ONE THAT TAUGHT US THAT!”

Oh dear. I was never really a Ben Stiller fan…but this certainly isn't helping...