Percy Cat

A student came up to me the other day and asked, "What's a Percy?"

Thanks to my unhealthy (and possibly cursed) association with the Thomas and Friends children's stories, I immediately thought of the little green bastard that delivers mail on Sodor. I replied, "Do you mean Percy the train? Thomas' friend?" FYI: Thomas is HUGE in this part of the world. Don't ask me why.

He shook his head and said, "No. Percy. Pee-cee. What is Pee-cee?"

I pointed the the PC in the corner of the room and asked, "Do you mean the PC computer?"

"No, no." Then he began pointing to different areas of himself and asked, "No, Per-cee." He kept pointing to himself, asking, "Where? Where is per-cee?"

Then it hit me. I asked him where he heard this word and he said that a student at his school was going around saying, "You per-cee. You per-cee." I told him that he shouldn't say that word and that he will get in a lot of trouble if he says it again. But he insisted on learning what it meant. "Where is it?" Pointing to his leg, arm, shoulder, etc., he asked, "Here? Here? Here?"

I just shook my head and said, "You're not gonna find it."

I'm beginning to wonder what these students are being taught when I'm not there. A few months ago I found this image in one of their textbooks...



I don't really think this is appropriate to put in a child's textbook. If any student asks me what S and M stands for, I'll say, "Spider-Man."

Or maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

Jason