Puberty is Much Better the 2nd Time Around

Warning: Anatomical puberty vocabulary coming up!

A couple classes (grade 5) are wrapping up their puberty unit this week. It's a very gentle introduction to body parts and changes and presented very well.

Today one class had to complete the final page in which they wrote definitions for the terms they had learned. I learned a penis is "like an organ or your liver." It can also be termed "the boy part." Sperm are "little specks inside a boy" or "the bits that sometimes come out." An erection is "when a boy tests out the sperm." Breasts are "the front of a girl" or simply "girl parts". Something that I didn't know (and boy am I glad I know this now) is that a vagina is "the cleanest part of a woman's body." Needless to say it was very hard to review the worksheets with a straight face. Thankfully, any misconceptions were easily cleared by uttering that timeworn phrase "Is that the definition from the chapter?"

It only got more fun when the teacher asked them to combine their poetry lesson with their newfound knowledge and write some puberty poems. They were encouraged to use hyperbole, alliteration, onomotopoeia, and metaphors for effect. Now, writing is a BIG deal here...and these kids know how to write. They were funny, enthusiastic, prolific and really pretty at ease with the task, with several offering to share their limericks about BO or a particularly well-written cinquain on zits.

I just never thought I'd hear "I don't know what rhymes with penis" in a classroom.

I suggested "genius." With all sincerity.