Here are the words we had trouble with, along with their definition:

fodder = raw material
fanatics = fans
sate= satisfy
jones = addiction
snippets = small parts
cohesion = sticking together
currency = money
bevy = collection
critiquing = analyzing or criticizing
rickety = unstable
grit = crunchy bits
mudslide = landslide of mud
swagger = jaunty walk or strut (Mr. Mabe said some guy named Mick Jagger invented that one.
emblematic = representing
bust = failure
lanky = skinny or raw-boned
tutorial = something that teaches you how to do something
raunchy = dirty or nasty
throngs = a large number of people (some kids giggled when Mr. Mabe said it because they thought he said "thongs.")
ubiquitous = everywhere
strains = part of music (but we only figured that out after looking at 33 other possible definitions.)
venue = a place
unison = all together, as one
foster = promote
conjured = bring or summon
engaging = interacting
banter = talking, chit-chat
dubbed = named or called
loose-limbed = flexible

We also never heard of Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly. Some of the kids sort of knew the names but we had no idea why. So Mr. Mabe put on a preview of the movie "Singing in the Rain," and we all sang along.

So anyway, what's with all the big words, dude?

7th Grade Research Class
John Hopkins Middle School

Should have been sign: A bunch of kids who need to be removed from the gene pool.

Someday these rocket surgeons and brain scientists will be the ones in charge of maintaining the nuclear arsenal.

"Currency" and "mudslide" are big words now, huh? Damn, today's 7th graders are farking retarded and they're not ashamed to tell everyone about it.

Instead of writing a whiny-ass letter, maybe this kids would be better off actually LEARNING SOMETHING.

Nah, the challenge would damage the snowflake's self-esteem.

Word scores the original article with a grade level of 8.4.

Give them a break. They've only had a few years to discover things. They are tiny little incomplete humans at that age. Tiny little partial people. The need to cook for a while before serving. They're like empty little bottles, waiting to be filled with fluids before being capped.

Well, maybe not so much that last part...

Brodan: before being capped.

Well, maybe not so much that last part...

Well, they are in St. Petersburg, after all.

But what really knocked me out was the cheap sunglasses...

I don't think it could be clearer that the teacher wrote that letter.

I think that teacher used to teach at my old high school. If I'm thinking of the same guy, he was a douche there, too. I went to private school for a while, so I understood what he was saying, but he would purposefully use unnecessarily large or unfamiliar words when speaking with the kids who had been subjected to Pinellas County Schools their whole lives, just to confuse them.

The smug bastard look on his face made me want to punch him every time he did it, but as he was a huge fatass, he could've easily crushed me by sitting down without clearing a three foot radius around his feet (which, like his penis, I am sure he has not seen in years).

I guess maybe they were on the right track with teaching Ebonics if these kids can't understand a few flowery words. I hope someone sends this thread to that school and tells the children that their stupidity is ubiquitous. Yah I said ubiquitous that should take them about 10 minutes to find that in the dictionary and another 20 minutes to try and figure out how to say it then the remaining 50 minutes to discuss what it means. I suppose one of them will change the spelling of it and make it his rapper handle.

Billygoat Gruff: I suppose one of them will change the spelling of it and make it his rapper handle.

Awesome.

/U-Bikwitus?

Mercurius: I think that teacher used to teach at my old high school. If I'm thinking of the same guy, he was a douche there, too. I went to private school for a while, so I understood what he was saying, but he would purposefully use unnecessarily large or unfamiliar words when speaking with the kids who had been subjected to Pinellas County Schools their whole lives, just to confuse them.

The smug bastard look on his face made me want to punch him every time he did it, but as he was a huge fatass, he could've easily crushed me by sitting down without clearing a three foot radius around his feet (which, like his penis, I am sure he has not seen in years).

If adults shy away from using a more complex lexicon around minors, how can we as a society expect the quality of our vernacular to not only be maintained, but to not diminish?

That's because kids aren't used to real words. They like understand initials like BFF, etc. Scary, very scary.

to be fair, I didn't learn ubiquitous till grad school, and "jones" hasn't been used as slang in many years. Some other ones are also not that common.

/obligatory
//I don't wanna go on a rant here, but America's foreign policy makes about as much sense as Beowolf havin' sex with Robert Fulton at the first battle of Antietam. I mean when a neo-conservative defenestrates it's like Raskolnikov fillibuster deoxymonohydroxinate.

Mr. Mabe?

Awesome. What a funny, awesome name.

I had teachers like this, too. You could have a basic idea of what words meant but the teacher would demand Noah Websteresque explications of each one. If nobody in the class volunteered a definition to the teacher's standards, said teacher punished everyone by forcing them to crack open the dictionaries. Voila, instant lesson plan.

This teacher went a step further by listing "Reasons Why My Pupils Are Stupid" and submitting it to the paper. The students may have learned one or two things out of this, but what actual teaching did this man accomplish?