Too sexy for my students

"Words are stupid," the kids whined, and something about their profane lack of curiosity endeared them to me. And who could blame them? The way they were learning vocabulary was, to my mind, boring, unnatural and, most important, ineffective. Their study materials sometimes defined words poorly, and sample sentences -- "She treated her house like a hovel" -- didn't help.

I made them use their new words. When I got stuff like "I don't want to candor my uncle," I decided to read them a book that actually contains complex words in eloquent sentences. I chose Nick Hornby's "About a Boy" -- partly because the older narrator, Will, is my age (36) and the younger narrator, Marcus, is theirs (12).

I was a little nervous about Will's observations about his adult romantic life, but the few times he mentioned sex, I referred to it as "dating" and totally got away with it.

One afternoon, I was reading along when it dawned on me that I was about to get to a section in which sheltered young Marcus is cruelly mocked by his classmates for not knowing a common euphemism for fellatio. I considered skipping ahead, but it was important to the plot. Besides, it wasn't about someone receiving fellatio, it was about how Marcus is less sophisticated, less worldly, than his peers. Like the movie adaptation, it was all very PG-13. I read on.

I was prepared for the fact that this two-word term was going to flip them out. What I had not considered -- and what ended up being the case -- was that they had no idea what it meant. Only one kid knew, and he and I howled as the other three frantically guessed. One boy gave himself a sort of raspberry on his arm and cried out, "It's that, right?" Part of me knew that I'd miscalculated the appropriateness of the chapter -- and possibly the book -- but another part of me was overjoyed to see them interested.

So I told them, in very inexplicit terms. It has to do with sex; it involves these two body parts; and they would not have to worry about it for a very long time. "How long?" one terrified girl wanted to know. I felt for her. "Not until you get married," I said. Then, to the whole class: "And don't tell your parents about this." They laughed. Why would we tell our parents? We would get in trouble!