speaking teenage is trickier than you think.

i was never good at spanish.  there's no point even denying it.  in fact, sophomore year of high school i was actually told i was bad at it and that despite testing well, i'd never get it.  inspiring, right?

but let's be honest.  it's the truth.  i took italian when i started college and lasted a semester where again, i could test the mess out of the language.  but speaking it?  as if.

however, in order to graduate from unc, i had to take something.  so i signed up for the party language of portuguese with all the athletes and hunkered down.  again ... testing?  no problem.  speaking?  well let's just say it's a good thing i partnered up for ALL speaking presentations with a guy majoring in foreign languages.  this girl knows how to play it, kids.

anyways, my newest foreign language is teenage.  and it has got to be the hardest of them all.  i'm not even very good at speaking adult most days since i find i'm too old to be a teenager but i'm easily bored by adult conversations.  but teenage?  holy cow.

for almost four weeks i've been working on learning teenage, but sad as it is, i don't know that i'm much closer to mastering the language.  i don't even think i'd test well on this one.

in fact, today a group of boys were listening to my classroom expectations (score one for listening!) and when i said 'does that sound like something we can handle?' i got three responses of 'word.'

i just stared at them in complete confusion as i didn't know what the heck they were talking about.  word?  did they misunderstand a word i said?  were they asking me to repeat one of my words?  were they mumbling and i couldn't actually hear them say "yes sweet teacher lady we DO think we can handle this"?

no, none of these were correct.  they actually said word.  and they meant it.

after school i asked their teacher about speaking teenage boy and he gave me a few inside tips and informed me that word meant they agreed and understood.  GOOD TO KNOW.  there needs to be a manual on this somewhere.

so as any good librarian would, i did my research when i came home.  here's what word actually means in teeange (in case you, much like myself, were uninformed of the language of teenage):

[thanks to http://www.urbandictionary.com for the example below]

word
	a phrase originally meaning: a) to agree with b) without a doubt c) true Meaning A: R: You know your momma's gonna have a fit when she finds that you burned down the house. D: Word.

good to know, right?  i'm sure i'll add to my teenage vocabulary the longer i practice, but i think i'll start with word.

and i challenge you to learn a little teenage.  word.

there is so much i don't know about greek mythology.

today i taught my first lesson. that's right ... a megan original, planned-created-and-implemented.  i was working with a 5th grade teacher to enhance what she's doing in her classroom on mythology.  i had planned for us to do some brainstorming and talking about myths, some connecting myths to our current lives a little bit, and then a smidge of reading a greek myth together.  from there, in the weeks to come, we'll work on a fun extension project where we'll get to showcase a myth (or create our own) ... all good stuff.

anyways, i spent hours familiarizing myself with both mythology and the specifics of greek mythology in hopes not to appear completely incompetent in front of those 5th graders.  i knew i wouldn't be able to talk around them the way i might be able to talk around kindergarteners by convincing them i knew what i was doing.  so countless internet and book searches later, i was as prepared as i was going to be.

i was going to connect mythology to the 5th graders by showing them characters from harry potter that derived their names (and sometimes their personalities) from greek mythology, and then throw in a few real life examples influenced by greek myths.  you know, it's all about authentic learning, right?

so here i am, armed and ready with my hermione granger, sirius black, and minerva mcgonagall pictures.  i also had pictures of nike and pandora jewelry in my bag of tricks.  and blow-my-mind there was one kid each time that knew exactly why it connected with greek (or roman in the case of minerva) mythology.

which of course is awesome.  to know they are so excited about learning different things and they have the chance to be exposed to this is inspiring.  i sure as heck had never read any of these greek myths (although somewhere along the line in my k-12 education i did learn about hercules, probs thanks to mr. disney).

and to be honest, in my 55ish minutes with these 5th graders today, i learned more about mythology than i did the weeks i spent planning and researching.

it is amazing what i don't know about greek mythology.  but it is even more amazing to me what these kids do know.  i can't remember exactly what i was like in 5th grade (except i know i liked to pass notes and that i failed a daily edit quiz), but i sure don't think i was excited about greek mythology.

but i'm excited about what i will learn now and it's all thanks to those kids this morning.