Dumb and Dumber

This week my Year 11s have continued writing their blogs. Their writing is basically stream of consciousness so they have horrific spelling and punctuation.

When I reminded one student (I'll name her Dumb) to go through and edit, Dumb said she already had. I asked, "what about making all the "i"s capitals?". She replied, "Why would I put capital letters in the middle of a sentence?" I didn't really know how to respond, I was dumbstruck... (bad pun). She really didn't understand that this was standard practise! When I was about to explain, another student (she can be known as Dumber) leaned over her shoulder and said "I never knew they were meant to be capitals, Miss." Both Dumb and Dumber were completely sincere. So I gave them a lesson they should have learnt by the time they were 10, not 17!

Dumb and Dumber regularly produce comments like this in my class, they frequently leave the rest of the class speechless with their stupid statements, and this is a class that never stops talking!

Last year, we went on a trip through the centre of Australia with 70 Year 10 students. For those that don't know, Australia is BIG and the landscape varied. We live in a city with a mediterranean climate, with four seasons that are generally mild. So travelling in a bus for days to reach endless plains of red desert is a brand new experience for our sheltered suburban kids (and me!).

Being on a bus with 35 students for hours at a time does tend to send the teachers a little insane, so we took it upon ourselves to make the most of their ignorance and gulibility. For example, we told the students that if they wanted to stop the dingoes coming near their tents, they needed to put a circle of shaving cream or flour around them every evening. Even though they told us they knew we were joking, when packing up the next morning there were at least three circles on the ground.

Another time, Dumber asked a teacher while walking through the outback, "Sir, will I see lions out here?".

When we crossed the border from South Australia to the Northern Territory, we informed students that they needed to set their watches back four hours. Dumb did. As their names imply, the NT is directly north of SA, and thus in the same time zone.

Crossing the border also means that visitors have to throw out any fruit they have, this is to stop fruit flies contaminating the landscape. However, the teachers managed to convince a whole bus of students that this also included any fruit flavoured lollies (candy). So the students handed over their sweet stashes and the teachers ended up with a boxful, which they proceeded to consume!

The strange thing is that Dumber is actually quite bright when it comes to school work. It's just that words from her brain bypass the filter system the rest of us have and exit straight out her mouth.