I Can Buy All the Jayz

This week has behaved much better than last. It seems aware of its place as the first in the spring calendar, and is taking its job seriously.

Students created adorkable French Revolution interviews. My favorite? The one entirely in Spanish, where they acted out the beheading of King Louis so thoroughly that I could understand the entire story even though it was in a foreign language. Oh, and the very studious girl who quietly made herself a fake mustache to wear as a nobleman and stuck with it the entire day. Wait, also the bloopers! Like when Juan (not his real name) stares at the camera, asks, “are you filming? Wait, what? Aaaaaaah! I can’t take it anymore!” in mock horror and runs offscreen holding his head in his hands while the other kids shout, “come back! Ms. W’s going to see this, you know!”

A girl trying to figure out where she’d rank in Old Regime France asked, “so, the clergy would be like the celebrities, and the 2^nd estate would be like me, and the third estate like the homeless?” That gave me pause— “No, the 2^nd estate were nobles, really really rich.”  

“I can buy all the Jayz,” she told me.

The kids love shoes. Why do they love shoes?

“Yeah, but can you buy a small country?” I asked her. The kids guffawed and got it. Still hit me for a loop when I think about how she lumped herself into the middle class and how I assume, and assumed, that any student at my school is in the lower income bracket, because otherwise their parents would use that money to get them the heck out. But then, I guess they might be spending it on all the Jayz.  

Two of my best and brightest started dating. I surprised them holding hands as they walked to school this morning. They chose my class to get into their first official lovers’ tiff:

--Napoleon was upholding the values of the French Revolution! He gave them the vote and everything!

--He gave the men the vote! But that doesn’t mean anything. He was really just in it for himself. He made his own siblings rule Europe!

--Ms. W, this is our first fight. And it’s your fault.

Children, I plead a joyous guilty.