hm. the "baby pigeons" things puts me in mind of a snipe hunt altho I may just be cynical.

actually I've dealt with enough college students that I'm just cynical period. Is it in any way possible that this individual was being... er, less than earnest?

The student in my class was most likely trying to attempt a derail, but still it was one of the stranger things I've been asked. Usually when my students try to derail they ask questions about current events or politics, but baby pigeons? It was just bizarre.

As for the other student, she was also well known in her recitation for her morbid questions and comments. It seems more likely that she was either genuinely coping with some kind of mental illness or that she was attempting some kind of recitation as performance art experiment.

Again even if the questions aren't genuine, it was the creativity (how do you even come up with walking over dead bodies?) that intrigued me.

When I used to teach the primary grades, there were a lot of funny questions. Wish I'd written them down. A lot were the typical "my cat's breath smells like cat food" remarks that kids under 8 tend to make. You say brightly, "Who can tell us what day of the week it is?" and a kid raises her hand and answers "...You're pretty."

One time I got into a conversation with a first-grader about where our baby chicks came from. In an attempt to asses her understanding of reproduction I asked, "where do you think they come from?" and she said, "Well, human babies come from when a man plants a seed in a woman." She mused another second or two and then added "...I wonder what that seed tastes like?"

"If one person is in a teleporter, then he could be beamed into another one without a problem, right? But if someone else is standing in one of them, and then the first person tries to go back, what will happen? Will they be fragmented into each other? And what's that called?

This was in an anger-management course. I had to actually start by making sure that teleportation wasn't real, because he phrased it as such a definite, immediate problem that I started to assume I missed a memo.

I'm not a teacher, but I volunteer with kids. I haven't been asked anything too strange. I have received sweet little compliments that made my heart burst. "You're really nice", "You're pretty." "I like your lipstick." And one kind of sad and funny remark, "You're nicer than my mom." I wanted to tell her that if I were her mother she'd probably think I wasn't so nice.

From Mrs. Doohickie-

Classroom appropriate: "Queen Elizabeth is still alive?" (A: "No, there are two Queen Elizabeths. That's why the current quen is called Elizabeth II.")

Classroom inappropriate: "Miss, are you smiling and in a good mood today because you got sex last night?" (A: "My personal life is none of your business.")

And Lori- you sound just like her, about 10 years ago. Beware, a teaching career may be your destiny.

I have thought about it, doohickie.

My wife took a circuitous route to the career she first considered but was talked out of by well-meaning but butt-headed counselors. 25 years after graduating from high school, she finally got her teaching degree in 2005 and has been enjoying it since. Before getting to that point, she was a retail major, then a retail manager, then mommyhood, then more retail, then considered ministry, then sold Pampered Chef, then got a degree in American Sign Language and started interpreting in middle school, then got carpal tunnel and needed surgery, then went on disability and finished her degree and THEN she finally started teaching.

I'm glad she did. :)

but baby pigeons? It was just bizarre

I think it's a bit of a meme, it might be from a TV show or something. See also "boy born who can swim faster than a shark".

Ages and ages ago, pre-internet, it was a question in the Straight Dope column of... er, some alternative weekly I don't remember. I know this because we bought two editions of the Straight Dope books that compiled questions and answers from the column. Now there's a web site, of course, and this question is included in the "Classics" section.

Don't have an answer, but wanted to warmly welcome you to MetaChat! Glad you made it over here.

I actually have seen baby pigeons. They're hideously awkward scruffy little things.

I don't have a question that is funny, but back when I taught business English to Southeast Asian folks in SF, I would get my normal triple latte prior to going in to teach.

Now, you have to understand that when I say teach, it meant that class starts at 7am, across town. So I've been up since 5am. And haven't had any coffee until I hit class and start instructing.

SO...I start off with the usual, "here's how you write a job description, a resume, here's the basics of English grammar...", and start using the blackboard, etc.

Except I'm drinking my triple at the same time, and so by the end of class all my students (there were about 20 or so) have their necks bouncing back and forth like their listening to a dope rap song or watching tennis. Because I'm bouncing around from one end of the blackboard to the other as the caffeine hits.

Should've been in a movie. I actually had to stop several times in class because it was obvious I was wearing them out.

My wife took a circuitous route to the career she first considered but was talked out of by well-meaning but butt-headed counselors.

Geez, my guidance counselor talked me out of the careers I wanted, too. How many people can tell that story? Guidance counselors must do more damage. Yeesh. To think of the presumptuousness of sitting with a high school junior and telling them what they should do with their lives, as if you could know - especially when they do know, and you're discouraging the following of passion.

As you become an adult and look around you at the unhappiness and incompetence, you realize that those determinations were false.

I heard an NPR story recently about a new fad for vocational programs in high schools. Now, I'm all for vocational programs, but it saddens me when a student is discouraged from her original passion (in this case, drama) and forced into a dental technician program or whatever *when she's 14 years old*.

I was talked out of my career choices too, Miko. I wanted to either be an accountant or open up my own restaurant. But I was good in math and science, by cracky, which made me ideal fodder for engineering!

So here I am, thirty years later as an engineer, making decent money and with an okay job, but hardly passionate about what I do. And now, if I only had a few accounting courses under my belt, I could probably get a promotion.

Life is very odd.

Having said that, seeing the passion Mrs. Doohickie brings into the classroom, if my engineering career helps make that possible, I'm okay with that.