Men Are From Mars, Women From Venus, Obviously.

You hear sayings all the time about the difference between men and women. One example would be, "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus". I don't think the two species (yes, I said that) will ever be able to fully understand one another and I firmly believe that we are wired that way. We can compliment each other, and maybe that's where the saying "opposites attract" comes in, who knows, but understand and fully comprehend each other? Yeah right. I always thought that it was something to do with men. As they get older they just don't care and perhaps they like to bicker simply for the result...make-up sex (yes, I said that too).

Until today.

You see, we have been studying nature as a friend and as an enemy. We have talked for weeks about this topic and have done coinciding projects and assignments to go with it. As a final assignment, I told the kiddos that they would make two posters: one representing nature as a friend, and another representing nature as a foe (enemy). They could use any art medium they chose, which also adds to the fun. There were rules. They wouldn't need to put FRIEND or FOE on the poster because I should be able to tell and I didn't want to see anything man-made; This would include houses, cars, humans, etc. They had to make a poster depicting nature with ONLY nature in them.

Simple. Right?

A certain young man walks up to me and says, "I know I need to color this still but what do you think so far?" My response? "Wow, that is an amazing drawing and you are really good at drawing people but remember the simple rules?" "Yes, Mrs. Welch. Dang it."

So as he walked away to place his drawing in the recycling bin (I know it's a sad story), I remind the class of the (basically one) instructions. Can somebody explain to me why all but 2 boys (and NO girls) sighed, got up, and trotted towards the recycling bins? I was amazed. I actually chuckled a little bit, Really? I mean, really?

It's clear to me now that men are hard-wired to um, how do I say this, not listen.

It's ok though because I learned something as a teacher today. I need to make sure that I make my students (ah-hem) repeat even the simplest of directions.

Because, as you can see, I am from Venus, and they from Mars, and we are clearly speaking two different languages.