"You know your school is in trouble when..." Topic

So I'm a teacher in a Maryland county school system and I've been teaching at my school for 5 years. I love my school! It's a great place and the kids are awesome as is the staff. However every once in a while….

I got to school this morning and I stopped by my mailbox to check and see what odd random stuff my school has for me. My eye is instantly caught be a gold paper announcing a new club for after school. Yeah, it's a bit late in the year, but what the hey. It'll probably kickoff again next year.

So I look at the thing- it's a sort of club for the brainy kids, very nice. But then my jaw dropped a bit… it's the name:

Scholars Of Distinction: S.O.D.

And the club is called the S.O.D. Squad.

The Sod Squad… really???????

Now I'll grant you that is British slang and 98% of my school, facility included, won't realise the gaff… but there is that 2% of students who have lived in the UK or have attended British schools….

Yup, they noticed. I have this cute little girl who grew up in London. She lived there until she was in the 1st Grade. She still speaks with a bit of a British accent. I watched her go to her in-class mailbox, take out the sheet, read said sheet… her eyes went wide, and the silliest grin streaked across her face, and she RACED to me with her treasure… giggling all the way.

"Yes honey, I know. The poor sods…"

It took her a full minute to recover her composure!!!!

Different culture, different S.O.D. for me. I wouldn't have gotten past the band reference to pronounce it, especially with the periods for abbreviation.

Too funny.

Ha.
At my wife's school, in this world of PCness the worst performers are officially called the "Golden Group".

Obviously, the staff refer to them as the "Golden Shower".

This quote comes to mind:

Obviously someone hasn't watched much BBC. I've never been to Britain, but…

Do they have a fagging system?

I was thinking of the old band SOD: Stormtroopers of Death.

The language can cause problems, a friend of mine was sent across the Atlantic to work in New York for a while, on the first day he made an error writing his notes and so he asked the pretty girl next to him if she had an erazor, except in the UK we call that a "rubber". Yo can guess her reaction.

Same deal with the First Aid Response Team they tried to start up here.

And the Chemistry Remedial Assessment Program we had in pre-university.

We have a lot of initiatives at work

Business Objectives Awareness – I did ask if they really wanted to have "B-O Awareness".

People who don't have B-O Awareness often have the worst cases of it.

Nothing wrong with a little Sod Squading from time to time (as long as your Squadie is ok with it ;-)