And I'mma tell you this, the hardest
part about teaching,
y'all, the kids' names.
Millennial's getting way too
creative.
I'm telling you.
(audience laughing)
First of all, I got a little boy
in my room named Sapphire Moon.
Exactly.
And then he going to come up to me
and say, "oh, Ms. Gaines,
"I don't have my homework
"because mercury in retrograde."
(audience laughing)
Why do you know that?
You what I mean?
I was like and tell your mama you
need to stop burning all this sage
in my classroom.
I don't understand what all
this means, OK.
And then-- check this out--
I have another one in my classroom
named Sha-Dw@*il'ah.
Yes.
And this is what Millennials do
because I can look at this audience
tonight and tell you all your names
are extinct, OK.
None of y'all are repeats.
Sha-Dw@*il'ah.
What they do is they take three
syllables, they push them together,
and then they arbitrarily capitalize
any letter they feel
like capitalizing.
And now they started putting
punctuation marks in the name.
Let me tell you how
Sha-Dw@*il'ah mama spell her name.
Y'all got to follow me.
OK, you ready?
Capital S-h-a-- hyphen--
capital D-w- at sign--
asterisk-- i-l-- apostrophe-- a-h.
Exactly.
I looked at the roster.
I said, baby, is this your name
or your mama computer password?
(audience laughing)
Because I'm going to tell you right
now I'm not going to memorize this
by June.
I'm just telling you.
It's not going to work out.
And then these are the parents who
are always complaining
that their kids don't win student
of the month.
Really?
Ma'am, you think I got that kind
of time
that I'm going to sit here and try
to type this out on a certificate?
(audience laughing)
I got a vision board.
I don't-- this is not a priority
to me.
You see what I'm saying?
And listen, y'all my-- to be
just like this every ceremony
and thank you parents for coming
and our student of the month
Ms. Gaines class for the seventh time.
Give it up for, Tim.
(audience laughing)
Yes.
Come on up here, little buddy.
This is for you absolutely.
Then they going to complain
about me, talking about Ms. Gaines,
Tim won student of the month
nine times.
That's not fair.
I said, "hey, he's a good kid."
They were like, well, he was absent
19 times.
I was like, "hey, that's called
"consistency and I honor that."
(audience laughing)
Exactly.
And then Sha-Dw@*il'ah is one
of those students that's always--
oh, she's that kid that you think
about when you wake up
and you think about when you
going to bed.
You know what I mean?
Teachers and educators can feel me.
She is that kid that's so difficult
because I'm just doing
a regular lesson.
I was trying to show the kids
that large animals, just
because they're large don't mean
their body parts are large.
Like the esophagus of a whale
is not large enough for a human
being to fall laterally through.
She's going to interrupt me.
(muttering)
"Ms. Gaines, at my church,
"Jonah got swallowed by a whale.
"Boop boop."
(audience laughing)
I said wait a minute.
First of all, did she boop boop me?
(audience laughing)
Because everybody know
in the African-American community,
when sound effects start,
that's when the fight break out.
(audience laughing)
Did you just boop boop me?
I was like, Angel, calm down.
Get it together.
You're a credentialed teacher.
She's eight.
You got this.
I said, Sha-Dw@*il'ah,
what I'm talking--
yes, you're talking Bible.
I'm showing you science.
If you just look.
She going to interrupt me again.
(muttering)
"Ms. Gaines,
"don't e'en worry about it.
"Don't e'en worry about it.
"I'll just wait 'til I get to heaven.
"I'll ask Jonah what happened.
"Boop boop."
I was like, wait a minute,
that's two boop boops.
Is that two?
Oh, little girl, oh, we boop booping
today, huh.
(audience laughing)
OK, Sha-Dw@*il'ah,
let me ask you this.
What if Jonah don't go to heaven
and Jonah goes down there?
Boop boop.
(audience laughing)
Then she gonna look at me
and say, "then good.
"You could ask him."
(audience laughing)
So that's all my attorney is
allowing me to talk about tonight.
(audience laughing)
Thank you.
I hear you, you lone applause.
I heard you.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, they are applaud--
they're not applaud friendly yet.
I'm going to drop that punch line
again and see if they join you.
And that's all my attorney is
allowing me to talk about tonight.
There you go.
(audience applauding)