Playing Monopoly and renting prostitutes

One of my teaching highlights is reading out loud to my students. I usually pick a novel that I know they have not read, and read a little bit to them each day after their warm up, or while we wait for the dismissal bell.

Currently I am reading Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin. It is the story of three kids, who fight to be rescued from the life they live with their crazy mother. Today we learned that wackadoo mom had hooked up with her new boyfriend, for the sole purpose of getting him to beat up her last boyfriend.

“Emmy, there was no possible way to protect you from hearing that our mother had hooked up with and seduced a stranger, a large man, intending to get him to do physical harm to her ex-boyfriend.”

One particular word got the attention of a young male student which lead to the following debacle.

Student 1: “What? Now Miss Lewis, what do you mean ‘seduced’?”

Me: “Well, it means she used her sexy ways to get her boyfriend to do things for her.”

Student 1: “Man, that’s messed up. She be using her sexy business like that.”

Student 2: “Sexy business? Was she like a prostitute?”

Me: “No. Mom is not a prostitute. We know from what we’ve read that Mom likes to party a lot, and she has a lot of boyfriends, but none of them last very long because she is crazy.”

Student 1: “Oh like that movie Milk Money. Those boys all ride bikes a lot and collect money so they can rent a prostitute. That movie was tight.”

Me: “No. Not like that movie. No one in our story is a prostitute. Mom meets people that she can manipulate, and a lot of the time those people are men. She met this guy, then used her sexy ways to get what she wanted, which in this case, was for him to beat up her ex.”

Student 3: “Oh I know what you mean. It’s like when my aunt and uncle play Monopoly. My aunt... well... if my uncle lets my aunt win then she...”

Me: “STOP TALKING!”

Student 3: (Whispering) “She lets him have a little something.”

Me: "I SAID STOP TALKING! NOW!!!"