WWIJD or What Would Indiana Jones Do?

Dear Secret Blogiary,

Sometimes it scares me how little my students know. I have to remind myself that they are only 13-14 years old and they haven’t been exposed to much in the way of culture.

“Mrs. W.?” Student J asked during the wind down of the lesson. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Does it have to do with the lesson?” I ask J trying to keep the exasperation out of my tone. J is notorious for asking questions that while interesting have nothing to do with the lesson or my content area.

“Kind-of,” he replies while shaking his head.

“Okay, Ladies and Gentlemen, go ahead and start reading the poem.” I sit down next to J. “Go ahead,” I say.

“Did you go to college for this?”

“This being…?”

“Language Arts…poetry…you know, this.” He gestures with his hands around the room.

“Yes,” I tell him. “My major was English. I love words.”

“Oh.” He says, then “But what about teaching? When you were in college is this what you wanted to do?”

“Oh. No!” I exclaim. “I didn’t even think about teaching until after college.”

“What did you want to be then?” J asks leaning forward on his desk, the poem he is supposed to be reading forgotten.

“Archeologist,” I say. “Like Indiana Jones.”

J stares at me for a few seconds. “Oh! You mean like the movie?”

I nod, smile and point at his book. He looks back at the poem for a minute but then as I am about stand up to move on to another group of students he looks back at me.

“Why didn’t you become an archeologist?” he asks quietly.

“No more Nazis.” I tell him.

“Oh,” J says, “What are those?”