The One Who Listened

The warm-up today for my students was to reflect on and write about an MLK quote I had on the board.  I had also written "Happy (belated) MLK Day!" because this was our first day back since Monday.  A student raised his hand and asked, "What's milk day?"  I played along with the joke and made some kind of remark about how we should all bring in a quarter for our little cartons of milk, and we could have snack time, and...

... and then I realized that he wasn't joking.  Like, not at all.  Le sigh.  Really?  I mean, really?  Milk Day?  


To be fair, he also thinks that Americans speak American and Canadians speak Canadian, so his lack of common sense is not limited to history.  He's equal opportunity in these types of questions, and the rest of us do the best we can to handle answering them with humor and grace... and maybe a dash or two of sarcasm.

When someone else asked later in the day why we didn't celebrate MLK Day during Black History Month, I held my breath, hoping that this conversation would not be a repeat of our morning history lesson.  Instead, before I could form a response, another student chimed in:

"Well, you see, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s actual birthday is January 15, but..." 

And he went on to answer the question with what I'm guessing was pretty much verbatim what he had heard in his history class.  I thanked him profusely for this gem of knowledge and promised to put in a good word with his history teacher.  I wonder if there's a way I could subtly strike up a friendship between him and my good ol' milk buddy.  A girl can dream.  You know, like that milk guy did?

Thank you, the one who listened, you made my day.

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