Another One Bites The Dust.
My last class on Friday is pretty relaxed. We talk about the week, what’s going on in the kids’ lives, the paragraphs they’re working on. It’s a chance for all of us to decompress.
Today one of my students, who is in Grade 7, spent the day working on a project about Ancient Egypt. This included the time-honoured tradition of making models of human organs out of papier mache.
It also included a day of reality TV, this student’s first foray into it.
“Do you know Paris?” she asked.
“Paris the city?”
“No, Paris. She is very rich.”
I shudder inwardly. I knew it would happen sooner or later. “Yes, Paris Hilton.”
“We watched a show. She is looking for a BFF.” She looks to see if I understand such complicated slang.
I nod. “Best Friends Forever.”
“I know! Some people want to be her friend so much that they cry! Why?”
So we talked a little while about why some people would want to be famous, and how people can be famous for a lot of reasons, even just being super rich. My student doesn’t really understand why anyone would do moronic things just for publicity, or carry animals around in handbags. All she really understands is that people get on TV for totally non-meritorious reasons, and that’s kind of stupid.
That’s all I could explain.
Some Stuff | Liz February 20, 2009
By Songbird, February 21, 2009 @ 6:23 am
My 8th grader daughter attends a school with a large population of kids who came from other countries, and it’s both interesting and sad to see when the culture breaks through and disillusions them.
By Liz, February 21, 2009 @ 5:20 pm
It did make me a little sad. But she is a terrific kid and I doubt very much that she’ll be that deeply affected. I hope not, anyhow.
By stephanie, February 22, 2009 @ 9:33 am
Paris Hilton is a bad infection that won’t go away.
By Liz, February 22, 2009 @ 10:53 am
That’s a great description.
By Arwen, February 22, 2009 @ 7:42 pm
Hey, Stephanie, that’s my new BFF you’re talking about! laughing