I should be ashamed

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

As a high school physics teacher, some of my students think I know something about a lot of things. I try not to disappoint them, and they ask some really good questions, which I try to answer to the best of my ability. And then there are the times where the true answer just seems, well, a bit banal…

Yesterday, a few of my students stayed late to finish up a mid-year exam. As Sam (not his real name, to protect the naive) handed in his paper, he went to throw his scrap paper into the recycle bin, and he innocently asked, “Where does all this paper go when they recycle it?” I was sitting at my desk, typing at my computer, and without looking up, I answered, dead-pan, “hot dogs.” Sam paused, and I kept typing away. Sam then said, cautiously, “Hot dogs?” I replied, “yeah, it’s a good source of fiber. Why do you think they’re so chewy?”

At this point, another student, Ian, looked up from his test, and I saw him give a quizzical look to me, and then Sam. Ian said, “What?? They don’t recycle paper into hot dogs!” I looked up, and said, “What, do you think I’m lying to you? What else are they going to do with it? It’s not like we can make it into more paper or anything. Actually, a lot of it goes into dog food, too, but that’s mostly from newspaper. The plain white paper goes into hot dogs. It’s a dirty little secret. Didn’t you ever read The Jungle? You should, it’s a good book.”

Sam gave me another look, and I could see he didn’t want to believe me, but couldn’t bring himself to think that I’d outright lie to him. He shook his head and walked out, probably thinking he’d never eat another hot dog again.

So, I should be ashamed. But boy was it fun. :stuck_out_tongue:

-Tofer

2

So, all in all, are you raising or lowering the net ignorance level of your students? :slight_smile:

3

So, when he comes back and tells you that paper isn’t made into hot dogs, are you going to send him to The Repository Of Lost Legends?

Because that’d be awesome.

4

Oh, don’t feel bad. That sounds just like something I’d say…with a straight face.
(Some of these kids are just begging to have their minds messed with. :slight_smile: )

5

Everyone knows hot dogs are made of dicks and noses. Period.

6

If they don’t believe you, tell them to write a 50 page report on recycling, history of, methods, cost effectiveness, and tell them to present their findings to the class.

7

In my opinion, you taught those kids a valuable lesson: they shouldn’t just automatically believe whatever Teacher says. Skepticism is very healthy-- gullibility and believing everything authority figures tell us has gotten this country into the mess it’s in today.

I think you should encourage your students to challenge you. Every week, tell them one wrong “fact” and offer a candy bar (or extra credit) to whomever can figure out what was wrong by the end of the next week.

8

Are you sure? I always heard that they consisted solely of tits, lips, and ears…although, admittedly, I only buy gourmet franks which probably accounts for the discrepancy.

9

You are both wrong. Hot dogs are made entirely from assholes. It says so right on the FDA Web site.

10

When Sam finds out he’s been tricked, will they come up with a new Tofer-brand of hot dog? :wink:

11

Y’all got me curious. Here’s what they have to say about hot dogs:

Nummy!
Daniel

12

You know, some things are just better in real life than they are in my imagination.
And by better, I really mean “more delicious.”

13

Hot dogs are chewy?

14

Wait a second, what the hell are hot dogs made of?

15

Where’s that museum you work at, again? :smiley:

16

Yeah, I’m not sure why I said that. I’m not the most extemporaneous person. They are squishy, though, and I imagine properly pulped-up paper might produce a suitably hot dog-esque consistency.

I thought of this conversation today when, at breakfast, I glanced at the vegetarian sausages and wondered what they did to the poor vegies to make them into a sausage-like food item.

-Tofer

17

Your hot dog story reminds me of Dave Barry’s “problem”. He’s a syndicated humor columnist, and had a column all full of silly nonsense. At one point he said he was in Paris, the city of the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
He got over a hundred letters from humorless people who were angry that he was making a mistake like that. Clearly he had never been there, etc.
He wrote back to all with return addresses that, indeed, the leaning tower had been moved there in 1998. Along with some other jokes.
One lady still didn’t get it and replied that “I checked with my travel agent and he assures me …”

18

tofergregg, you should absolutely not be ashamed. My physics teacher, one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, used to do this kind of thing on a regular basis, partly because it fit in with his sense of humor. The Dark Sucker Theory and other heresies were common class topics. He’d challenge us to explain what was wrong with what he said. I second Lissa’s suggestion to make a fun exercise out of it. It doesn’t even have to be related to physics.

19

I’d say that a lot of it winds up in Scrapple.

:eek:

I’m with Lissa. You taught them not to follow blindly, but to question. Great gift- the gift of absolute mistrust. :smiley:

Cartooniverse

20

It only maked your students curious…which in turn might make them research. No harm done.

In any case whatever hotdogs are made out of it has to better for you than spam.