OK, we usually have some troubles with the seventh graders in the spring, and I am usually up on the banter, but I need some help here.
One of the kids keeps saying (in an obviously sexual way) how he likes to eat chicken. I know quite a few innuendous things, but that one has me stumped, so I can't do my usual, "Ok, I know what that means, and if I hear it again, bla bla bla" I have called him on his behavior(the sly winks and lascivious grins. ew) but I can't exactly give him a detention for talking about chicken until I have some facts to back me up.
He is also going around the room asking people what their favorite food is.
If the answer to my question is not appropriate to write, please catch me by email.
edob63@yahoo.com
This may seem silly, but for those of you who teach, or remember being, middle schoolers, I know you will understand. Thanks in advance. I think.
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
You're RIGHT to be upset, but as I'm at work, I can't e-mail you. Google "slang" and "chicken" in the same searchbar.
edit: add the word "sexual" to the searchbar, click on the first hit and scroll down...sad.
[ March 23, 2004, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Boon ]
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Couple different possibilities.
Lately it's used to refer to a young/underage boy ("Chickenhawk" can refer to a gay man who prefers younger lovers, or to a pedophile who prefers underage ones).
"Chickenhead" can mean a young girl, a skanky girl, or a girl known for her oral abilities.
"Eating chicken" can refer to sex with young girls or specific sex acts with young girls (Remember Jim Morrison's lyric from "Back Door Man": "I eat more chicken than any man alive").
And I'm sure there are other meanings I don't know about. No matter what he means by it, it sounds like the intent is more the problem than the words.
[ March 23, 2004, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Thanks, Boon. So far, I have found "choke your chicken." So I assume chicken is the male member.
Sigh.
What this means is, tomorrow I get to have a little talk with him, armed with my new knowledge which I will pretend is old knowledge. Actually, I will also have to tell him that it is sexual harrassment, etc. etc.
Hmm, perhaps this is a job for the male assistant principal. I think so.
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
See Chris's post above.
It's also used to describe a young girl who is still a virgin.
I just didn't really want to type all that out in public...
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Thanks, Chris. I wrote mine before I read your reply. Actually, since he aske ME if I like chicken, and was asking others in the class, it is really a lot more serious.
He is in a lot of trouble already.
Yuck.
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
I also ran across a book written by a young male prostitute who refers to himself as a "Chicken", and yes, that's the context used as well.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
New tactical approach: explicit truth.
I am going to tell him exactly how I found out(Internet), and then tell him that it has been taken to the next level.
Another cute thing he has been doing is teaching younger kids words, which they say and get in trouble for. (One fifth grader drew a picture of a pimp mobile, and happily showed it to us.)(It is am Alternative Ed. class, with fifth, sixth, and seventh graders)
This is all part of the job, but my least favorite part.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I once was a teacher's aide in a sixth grade classroom, and a boy got in trouble for sexual innuendo.
The teacher pulled me aside and whispered to me "what is the sexual meaning of '69'?"
I almost burst out laughing. But didn't. She was young and naive.
I explained it.
Teachers gotta keep up on this stuff!
FG
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"Teachers gotta keep up on this stuff!"
It is only March. We are only a couple of days into spring. Argh.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
In kids, sexual acting-out (verbal or physical) can be a marker of abuse, even if it is coupled with braggardy or sniggering. It can be a sign of forced tension in the sexual arena of a young person's life, and the dealing aggressively with it can be a way of coping.
Of course, he might just enjoy being a jerk. But still, worth a thought.
Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
Elizabeth - I don't really have any advice, but I do think you might want to be a bit thankful that they don't start in on this until seventh grade or so.
One time I started out working as a substitute teachers aide. The first day they sent me out, I was put in with a preschool class. One little kid attached himself to me, and just talked and talked and talked all day. And then, at one point, he started telling me - in detail - about the porn video he had watched the night before. I was horrified; he was four and a half years old. Sigh. Posted by peterh (Member # 5208) on :
lil miss,
That's horrible.
Perhaps it had something to do with this.
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
Elizabeth, I can relate. Our 4th-8th graders are so savvy that it both creeps me out and scares me. Sometimes the 4th graders are worse than the 8th graders. They talk about going out with each other and cheating on each other. It's insane.
We had a problem with them using the words "pimps" and "hos." There's actually a computer game called Pimp Daddy that they love to play (and on public school-issued computers!). What worked for me was that I explained to some of the popular group leaders that pimps are bad, disgusting people who ruin lives and usually end up in prison. I also explained that it's very serious and offensive to call a girl a ho. I gave them this general rule: If you wouldn't want someone to say it about your Momma, don't say it about anyone else.
The kids also have a fascination with our personal lives that gets beyond inappropriate. On Friday, I went to say goodbye to Brandon, who was sitting at a table with some of the middle schoolers. We had a training that we were carpooling to, since we live down the road from one another. He asked me what time he should pick me up and one of the 8th graders started singing porno theme music. I couldn't believe it! This is the YMCA, for crying out loud.
Edit: spelling
[ March 23, 2004, 09:03 PM: Message edited by: Mrs.M ]
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
The thing we teachers have to remember is that these kids are trying to learn about the world of sex that is so blatant all around them. What is appropriate and what's not? Why is it okay to play "pimp daddy" and watch certain videos and not okay to talk about it at school? What does sexy mean? Don't all adults want to be sexy? How can I be sexy, too?
Sex is a part of life, and in our culture it's a very obvious aspect. We still keep some things behind closed doors, but enough leaks out that the kids are naturally going to try to put things together on their own. And if adults want this, why shouldn't they?
Kids, even middle schoolers, are just trying to make sense of their world. We grownups can be incredibly confusing with the messages we send.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
When I was at camp in the fall, s particular group of inner-city kids made me go
We were chatting at dinner, and the main topic of conversation was who was going to go with who to the dance. (We weren't having a dance, but for some reason they thought we were.) When I commented that they were a little young to be so worked up about it, one kid turned to me and said "Yeah, right. You know what 'grinding' is?" He was ten.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
CT, I think you are right on this one. I have worked with many sex offenders over the years,and this has the feel of harrassment more than sexual exploration. He asked ME if I liked chicken.
I also think he is making other kids uncomfortable in a big way, and their behavior fits with what Jenny is saying.
This is a sixth grader, actually, who stayed back, so he is older, and very savvy. Caught selling at recess, which is why he is down in the basement with us.(I would love to know the percentage of alternative or special ed classes that are housed in the cellars of our country's schools)
Anyway, all this is great info. I am armed with chicken lingo, and can go into the discussion with eyes open wide.
Yuck. Not my favorite part of the job, nope.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
I'll bet you anything that this kid thinks "chicken" means something very specific that it doesn't actually mean to any adult Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Good Luck, Elizabeth. Let us know how it goes.
Some things you have to know are things you really don't want to know, eh? Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
That said, I think very very close tabs should be kept on that boy. I know of a case where people thought it might just be innocent or naive behavior, so there was no real effort brought into finding out why he was acting that way.
A few years later, he has damaged many children and is now in a residential treatment center. If it had been taken seriously before, he might be okay now and there would be a lot fewer families in pain. As it is, this kid probably cannot hope for a cure, only for behavior modification. He faces a life of either sick criminal behavior or extreme measures to make sure he doesn't act out.
Never, ever take anything too lightly.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I too am a bit worried.
I have no education in the area of sexual predators or pedophilia. I have no expertise.
However, the fact that this boy is using a term that may imply sex acts perfomred by a young child on an adult, or the other way around, makes this a situation that should be looked into.
In other words, did he learn the phrase by being the chicken, or from some adult teaching him in ways that are not good for him. He may be uncertain if eating the chicken is normal or not, but someone has told him repeatedly that it is. His behavior may mark a child looking to find out if what Mr. X asks him to do is a sign of adulthood, or deviance.
Posted by BYuCnslr (Member # 1857) on :
It's also quite likely (and personally I think more likely) that they --being teen-aged boys-- were trying to make an innuendo out of something random just because they could. Likelyhood is that they were eating chicken for lunch and something funny about the chicken came up. Teens will be teens...and goodness...adults do it too. After all don't you just love eating a nice...hot....slow fire roasted chicken leg? So tender and juicy so you want to eat it slowly to enjoy every bit of meat until you're down to the bone which you want to lick all over because the wonderful taste is on it? And then lick all your fingers one...by...one to savor the last bits of the wonderful flavor... ...I think that was on a Boston Market commercial... Satyagraha
[ March 24, 2004, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: BYuCnslr ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It is amazing to me that in junior high, kids often put up with situations that would cause major, major lawsuits in the adult world. Harassment, bullying, racial and sexual slurs, lack of autonomy... The effects of that kind of harassment are even greater on 12-year-olds than they would be on an adult.
I recognize that it's part of being a not-quite-yet-civilized society, and that to police that society as stringently as the adult world is would consume so many resources little would be left for teaching, but no wonder junior high is so terrible! It's so terrible that when adults act that way, it's seen as abberant, shameful and grounds for millions of dollars in lawsuits.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Sure, this could mean something horrible, and certainly, applying to his teacher is out of line.
But when I was in the eighth grade, my friends and I decided one day that the word "fish" would mean "sex", and we spent a week making little puns and laughing our arses off.
As far as I know, we all grew up pretty normal, and none of us was a particularly traumatized, troubled youth. We were just discovering the world of dirty jokes and innuendos for the first time, and were clumsily playing around with it. I still laugh a bit whenever I hear the phrase "fisher of men"
The first dirty joke I ever heard and repeated was in the third grade. And I'm fine. I think that while this may be a cause of serious concern, it could also be nothing at all. Let's bear that in mind.
Posted by Xaposert (Member # 1612) on :
You know, you don't really need to know what the term means to call the kid on it. And you definitely don't need to say you found out on the internet. Just say you know it is sexual innuendo and won't be allowed. If you are correct, you are correct. If you are wrong, and it isn't innuendo or the kid doesn't know it's innuendo, they'll still believe you are right.
quote:It is amazing to me that in junior high, kids often put up with situations that would cause major, major lawsuits in the adult world. Harassment, bullying, racial and sexual slurs, lack of autonomy... The effects of that kind of harassment are even greater on 12-year-olds than they would be on an adult.
I recognize that it's part of being a not-quite-yet-civilized society, and that to police that society as stringently as the adult world is would consume so many resources little would be left for teaching, but no wonder junior high is so terrible! It's so terrible that when adults act that way, it's seen as abberant, shameful and grounds for millions of dollars in lawsuits.
Ah, if only adults could learn to tolerate that stuff as well as middle school kids, without resorting to lawsuits.
Then again, middler schoolers do resort to fights. I guess it's a constant in life.
Posted by Xaposert (Member # 1612) on :
quote:But when I was in the eighth grade, my friends and I decided one day that the word "fish" would mean "sex", and we spent a week making little puns and laughing our arses off.
Hehe... Actually, we STILL make jokes like that... Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Absolutely. It's just cause for heightened awareness, that's all.
I remember when my best friend and I decided that we would refer to tampons as "duckbills," and we cracked up over Phil Collin's "Billy, Don't you lose my number."
(Oh, now Billy, Billy don't you lose my number Because there ain't any way That I can find you)
Yeah, guess you had to be there. Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:Ah, if only adults could learn to tolerate that stuff as well as middle school kids, without resorting to lawsuits.
You know, if someone I worked with every day used his imaginings and questions about my sex life for his own personal aggrandation and pleasure, I would feel absolutely no legal or moral obligation to tolerate it.
Middle-schoolers tolerate it because they have no choice.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Spot on, katharina. The world of kids is a vicious one.
That's why the importance of good parenting cannot be overestimated.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
And see, all this time I thought liking chicken was a reference to the New X-Men comic book where Angel is getting it on with Beak, who is basically a boy who looks like a chicken!
Posted by ladyday (Member # 1069) on :
I had a guy at my old job who used to try to pull one over on me here and there. He had enough of a sense of shame to be embarrassed when I simply raised my eyebrows and said "I know what that means." I was soon labeled as "no fun."
Maybe it's simply an I know something you don't know sort of deal to get attention. When things like that happened at my middle school, it would usually carry on until everyone knew what it meant, and then kids lost interest. At least that's how I remember it.
Posted by Jeni (Member # 1454) on :
Oh, the things I never expected to learn at Hatrack.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Well, he said it was something they heard on South Park, something about a cat chasing somebody after eating chicken, or some darn thing? I still don't believe him, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt for now. He is a boy who is in some serious trouble already, and everyone is ready to blame him for anything that happens.
I decided not to "take it upstairs," and give him a chance to change his behavior. He is a kid who has way too much freedom in his life for his age. He was caught selling pot on the payground, and his folks just weren't all that upset. How is he supposed to know what and where the lines are? So, I tried to teach him where the lines are in the sexual innuendo arena. I think he knew what he was saying, but I don't think he understood the consequences he could face, especially since he is already in huge trouble.(He is a VERY good liar) If it continues at all, we will have to deal with it in a more serious way.
I do think he has had "relations," and I wonder, with his unsupervised life, if he might have been abused in some way. Sometimes, what is deviant behavior to us is regular behavior in his world.
Sad.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Oh, and thanks, everyone.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
First, before you criticize JR High kids for this behavior, remember one thing--THEY ARE KIDS. What's the first thought that hits you when you hear an idiot make a crude innuendo? How Immature.
Well folks, the definition of Immature is Not Grown Up Yet. Please, please, please don't expect or demand kids grow up too soon.
and I'm glad you were able to handle the talk so well, despite it being one of the worst parts of your job.
I for one, am proud of the way you handled it.
You didn't.....
(please forgive me. I couldn't help it)
You didn't Chicken out.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Dan, please stop ruffling my feathers, OK?
Seriously, though. If a student is using the word Chicken to mean Penis, and he asks his teacher if she likes to eat chicken, that is not funsy-doodle kidstuff, that is sexual harrassment, and the teacher could file charges on the student.(no fair taking anything in this thread to the Out of Context thread, by the way) So, if I take the route of "that is just kid stuff," and the kid does the same thing to another teacher, or to another kid, I have been remiss. Also, there are kids who are EXTREMELY uncomfortable with this kind of talk, but pretend they are not. I have to think of them as well. It would be a whole lot easier if I was not a dirty-minded old thing myself, frankly. Then all the innuendos would go right over my head, and I would not even have to ask what "chicken" means, because I would assume it meant plain old chicken. But now, chicken will never be plain old chicken. Sigh. Yet another pitfall of being a teacher, I suppose.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
FWIW, Elizabeth, there are South Park scripts online, but they can be pretty graphic.
Could you just keep an eye on him around other, younger children?
It is good to be sympathetic to him, to understand that he may be acting out because he does not understand boundaries. But don't take it too far. I suggest a counselor talk to him about what he thinks those words mean, and how it can affect other people.
Too, too many people passed of the behavior of the kid I mentioned as "just kid stuff". Too many parents have had to ask the adults in charge of him: How could you know this about him and still let him be around younger children?
I'm sorry that I'm more worried about the abuse he may be causing than the abuse he may have recieved. But the cycle must stop somewhere, and he will be far less harmed by a probe into his behavior (keeping a dedicated eye on him in the playground and a few sessions of counselling) if he is innocent than by letting it go with a teacher reprimand if he is not. The counsellor, BTW, needs to know he is a good liar. IMHO, since he was selling pot to kids and his parents could care less (were there any legal consequences for that?) he should be in counselling anyway for other reasons. If he is, tip this off to the counsellor.
The kid I'm talking about got quite a few reprimands, but no real intervention.
Witch hunt is bad. Yes, yes, I know. But in this case, perhaps a little fear of the consequences of his harassment (which is real, whether he knows the meaning of chicken or not) will cause him to grow up just a little more civilized.
[ March 24, 2004, 09:40 PM: Message edited by: Amka ]
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Amka, I understand your concern.
So far, he is on probation, with a court case pending. Why it takes them so long is lost on me. Why he is still in school is also lost on me.
He is a good kid, or wants to be. We are a VERY small classroom, with fifth through seventh graders, and we watch them like hawks. Frankly, I think he needs to be in a residential program or diagnostic hospital program, so he can be watched and contained, and have regular counseling, as you suggest. I wish the schools had more power to choose these things, but at this point, there are fewer and fewer outside placements because they are expensive.
For example, our superintendent is cutting the health teacher in the middle school so we can get a full time computer teacher. With No Child Left Behind, the focus is increasingly on test-passing academics, and everything else is considered fluff.(music and art are disappearing left and right as well)
More and more emotionally disturbed kids are kept in the schools to save money. I am all for inclusion, EXCEPT for children with severe emotional and behavioral problems. They need to have more attention in a separate, smaller setting with a focus on behavior modification, and the other kids need and deserve to be safe.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
CT, I think the Chicken Lover bit was exactly what they must have been referring to. Yuck. Thanks, though.
Posted by skrika03 (Member # 5930) on :
quote: It's so terrible that when adults act that way, it's seen as abberant, shameful and grounds for millions of dollars in lawsuits.
Or getting elected governor or president.
It's amazing that if a 12 year old sells pot, no one is accountable. I know the kid shouldn't be jailed, but isn't there some grounds for a foster care referral or something? I know foster care is, unfortunately, not necessarily an improvement. :sigh:
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
I keep thinking that parents should be held legally responsible for felonies their children commit :-/
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
This is very mildly related, but I wanted to address this:
quote: Ah, if only adults could learn to tolerate that stuff as well as middle school kids, without resorting to lawsuits.
Attitudes like this really bother me. I think a lot of times guys aren't aware of stuff that goes on, not because they're deliberately not seeing it, but because they're not present when it happens.
For example, a couple of weeks ago I went on a trip with the robotics team. I was thrown together a lot with one of the male teachers who I had not previously met. He creeped me out, not in a lawsuit sort of way, but in a I would never ever be alone with him sort of way. He was married, not that you could tell, and I was really uncomfortable with the way he was 'joking around' with me. Later, on the car ride back I was talking with my boyfriend, one of the other teachers, and his girlfriend. Both of the guys thought the other teacher was really cool and fun, both of us girls were completely creeped out by him. We explained to the guys what it was that creeped us out, and realized that they hadn't been around for any of the incidents that bothered us. He'd completely toned down when the rest of the guys were around. It's not that these guys were insenstitive or stupid, it's that what was happening wasn't happening around them.
Granted, that was a fairly unimportant situation, but I think that's a pattern that is generally followed and leads to a lot of misunderstandings. /derail
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Not a derail at all, blacwolve. I think a lot of boys don't learn what is appropriate behavior, because parents figure they will learn at school,school thinks the parents should teach them, and pretty soon they are men(or women) just making it up as they go along, and learning the difficult way.
There is a difference between sex offender behavior and ignorant adolescent "learning" behavior, though. I once heard, and I am not sure if this stat still holds up, that 98% of sexually abused boys become sex offenders.
Also, I have a high empathy level or something. I get a queebed out feeling from people who are offenders. I used to work in a group home for latency age sex offenders. Oh. My. Goodness. You learn to be very direct about things, because even at age eight or nine, they are SO slick and devious. I would say that you should trust those feelings, not ignore them, and just be aware.
Posted by Zevlag (Member # 1405) on :
quote:Oh, the things I never expected to learn at Hatrack.
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