(College) Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Their Instructors

A few people missed my once-a-week class recently, and they wanted to catch up...especially when they heard there would be a quiz.

KID: So will you have mercy on the people who were out sick last week?

ME: Well...I will for the people who emailed me and said they weren't going to be here.

KID: (hesitating, looks embarrassed): I didn't know your name.

(I reminded her that, like many things, "it's on the syllabus." I also pointed out to the class that, even though my last name might be hard to remember, we'd have a completely different problem if I were Professor Jones, since they'd have to figure out which of the 29 Professor Joneses I was).

(College) Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Music Theory

In a recent Fundamentals class, we were introducing the circle of fifths, which has a lot in common with a clock. Once we established that there were twelve possible keys, I asked the following...

ME: So what is another object that can be divided into twelve equal parts?

KID: A pizza?

(Those would be really skinny slices! And the funny thing was that I asked the class to try again, and nobody got it until I pointed at the clock on the wall. I then surveyed the class and found out that, besides myself, there were only two watch-wearers in there...)