Teenage Boys

I suggested to a failing student today that he complete one of the extra credit projects to bring up his grade. It's an easy 2 page research paper on a landmark supreme court case. I showed where the list of court cases were in the textbook that he could chose from. About 10 minutes later with an overly innocent smile on his face, "Teacher, I want to do this case. But I'm not sure exactly what it is saying here." So I read the textbook summary of the case. A case about "sex discrimination." I explain that the court ruled that you are not allowed to hire someone over another person based on their gender. In the case Reed v. Reed, they wanted a male to fill an administrator position instead of a female. I explained this to the student. His face fell. "Oh. Let me look again," he says as he takes the textbook back. "You don't want to do that case?" "No."

Can you guess why? In my mind I was smiling amusedly, but keeping my poker face. A case about sex discrimination...he was hoping to research some titillating sex scandal or sexual orientation case that he could joke about...but in this case the word "sex" referred to gender. Never mind teacher.