Getting second guessed by second graders

A few cute stories from the trenches.  Some of them involve teachers, rather than students - the staff I work with is pretty darn awesome.

Story #1: in which I should have ended the conversation earlier.
Teacher: Hey, Megan, what's the word for parapluie in English?
Me: Umbrella.
Teacher: Oh, I can't believe I didn't know that!
Me: Oh, I bet you did.  It was a song, you know.
Teacher: Oh really?  I don't think I know that song. **
Me: Sure you do!  *singing* you can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella..
Teacher: *blank look*

**this, right here, is is the point I should have ended the conversation.

Story #2: That's what she said!
In a CE2 class, the kids were getting pretty good at saying "I am" so the teacher decided to introduce them to "he is" and "she is".  He wrote down "he is" and "she is", and drew a boy and a girl next to them, respectively.  Well, his stick figure boy was drawn a little too hastily, and had...what a child might innocently interpret as a "third leg", if you get my drift here.  I was holding it together (a classroom full of 8 year olds isn't the place for "that's what she said") until he pointed at his boy drawing and said, I swear, "see, you can tell this one is a boy".  I very maturely sat down and laughed until I cried.  The teacher was laughing too, even as he was telling me to pull it together.  Luckily none of the kids got it.

I was very strongly reminded of this, my mom's Pictionary interpretation of "doorman".

Story #3: Part of it was my fault
Once my teacher told the class that a word for cat was "pussy".  I calmly managed to explain that we don't use that word anymore unless you say "Puss-in-Boots" (which is what we were talking about), and say it exactly like that.
Around the same time (learning animals) I threw in some more difficult animals, like a seal.  Well, this one was my fault, because the word for seal is phoque, and I unfortunately tried to teach them that word about 1 day after I taught them that "so many words in French are the same as in English...so if you don't know a word, just try to say it with an English accent!"  So when I hold up a picture of a seal and have 20 kids scream out "fuck!" in unison, absolutely seriously, it takes all I've got not to crack up.  (Because once you laugh, they'll ask why, and then they've got you by the short ones.  Better to keep a poker face.)

Story #4: America
Elodie asked me to put together a presentation about America for a few classes at her school, and since my teachers had asked me to do the same thing I really got the maximum amount of mileage out of like, two hours of work (score!)

Teaching kids about America can be both hilarious and frustrating.  They are so incredibly excited that they jump up and down, yelling your name, waving their hands, shouting over you, trying to guess what everything is and arguing with both you and each other.  It's cute, though, because even kids that normally just stare blankly are at least interested.  I was surprised at how much some kids knew - so clearly for some of them, the interest went deeper than not having to work and getting to look at pictures.  I told them a little bit about my own life (making a student stand up and showing them how high the snow in Spokane would come up to on them was always a high point), then showed them pictures of landmarks, animals, holidays, etc.

Top two comments:

1.  Me: "why do you think that the American flag has 50 stars?"
One of my all-time cutest students: "Because there are 50 stars in the night sky?"

2.  After being asked to write what they'd learned: "Megan does agility with her dog, but they don't win anything at all".  (In reference to the fact that even if you "win" at agility, you don't get prizes or money or anything - it's just for fun.)

If they retain nothing else, at least maybe they now realize that "America" and "England" are two separate countries...