There's a Miley Cyrus Song for That!

So one of my students walked into class and, as today is end of term, I started hounding him about last minute assignments. Apparently teaching has made me immune to certain details, because as I was speaking he took out his earbuds and said, "don't worry, I can hear you. They're not plugged in." (Clearly I am used to being half-ignored during all interactions with teenagers at this point because I hadn't even noticed). Well, I looked down under his jacket and sure enough there was the end of the cord flopping around and no iPod, iPad, iPhone, iSpaceMonkey contraption in sight.

At this point, I paused my lecture and posed the question, "ummm....why do you have earbuds if you aren't listening to anything?"

To which he responded, "Cause I don't want to talk to anyone, so then they think I can't hear them and I can ignore them."

After locking this technique away for future use on obnoxious students, I delved further into the void, "But you are such a likable guy and people love talking to you!?"

"I know..." (Clearly his anti-social behavior was not linked to any 'my-teenage-life-is-an-emo-tragedy' issues) "but do you ever have those days where you just don't feel like talking to people? It's like....it's like my life is usually that happy Miley Cyrus song and I'm all, 'I put my hands up!' But today....today came at me 'like a wrecking ball.'"

I am so glad my students can pull from the great artistic geniuses of their day to help them express those things that are just too difficult to express in any other way :)