Last year, in what was surely the most uproariously fun day in the history of Staten Island’s Intermediate School 72, health and physical-education teacher Faith Kramer gave her own inventive, genius spin to a state-mandated lesson on HIV/AIDS to eighth graders.
She wrote down the polite words for sexual organs, sexual acts and bodily fluids on the board — and then asked her students to list any other terms they might know for those things.
If one wants to get eighth graders to remember their health-class lesson about AIDS, this is probably the way to do it. You can only imagine the fever that gripped students as they at first timidly and then with increasing excitement began shouting out words like (the Post informs us) “blow job,” “furburger,” and “schmeckle.” Alas, not everyone thought this was so awesome.
If one wants to get eighth graders to remember their health-class lesson about AIDS, this is probably the way to do it. You can only imagine the fever that gripped students as they at first timidly and then with increasing excitement began shouting out words like (the Post informs us) “blow job,” “furburger,” and “schmeckle.” Alas, not everyone thought this was so awesome.
Ms. Kramer argued that she did not ask students to write the resulting slang words, euphemisms and vulgarities in their notebooks, but some did. As a result, some of Ms. Kramer’s 30 students went home with neatly transcribed lists of off-color words for sexual acts and body parts, including two Yiddishisms for the male sexual organ. At least one parent called the school to complain, court documents state.
Damn nerds. As a result, the school opened an investigation, and Kramer was relegated by the Board of Education to the rubber room. Until yesterday, when she was vindicated by a sassy Brooklyn judge.
“If the Board of Education wants its teachers to instruct adolescents about HIV using Latinism of the academy, excluding vulgarism of the street, it should tell them so, plainly,” wrote Judge Jack Weinstein in his decision, released today.
In other words, stuff it, ya uptight schmeckles.
Slang terms OK for body parts in sex ed: judge [NYP]
Suspended Over Naughty Words in H.I.V. Class, Teacher Wins U.S. Ruling [NYT]
