Do you come from a long line of idiots?

Only Judge Judy gets away with saying that to people.  I like Judge Judy.  Or maybe I just like the idea of being a judge.  You get to tell people what you really think of them.  It's so opposite of being a teacher — you have to watch everything you say, or else.  I got in trouble my first year at the current school for regularly saying the word CRAP in class.  The mother came in after school to see me — after she'd already expressed her disapproval of me to my principal — she said, "We are a Christian family, and our children are not raised to..."  I apologized to her, sincerely too because I honestly didn't think it was an inappropriate word; then I apologized to my students the next day and promised not to say that four-letter word again.  The kids told me they didn't care, one student said, "Mrs. Nguyen, words are not bad or good.  People are."

That's why they don't let people drink until they're 21 years old, because even 21-year-olds are morons. 20-year-olds and 19-year-olds are double-morons. They shouldn't even be allowed out of the house after nine o'clock at night.

The problem was my own two children, Gabriel and Sabrina, were in the classroom when this mother paid me a visit.  I didn't appreciate her playing the Christian card on me in front of my kids as if I were immoral and corrupt.  I went to my principal after that and told him that if she ever came back and talked to me in that way again, that I'd tell her exactly what I thought of her and then he'd have to fire me.  Fair deal. 

(Okay, so I seem to always screw up during first years.  I know it's not okay to call a student an a-hole, but I was 23 years old at the time and still fresh from being a moron.)

I would trust your witness much more if he didn't have holes in his jeans.

At another school a mom had called the principal to express how offended she was to see the grade that I'd given her son in science, "It's bad enough to see an F on his progress report, let alone an F minus!"  Turned out the software that the school was using automatically calculated anything below a 40% to be an "F minus."  Mom was fine after we gave her the explanation — apparently the F-without-the-minus was acceptable to her.  My principal said to me afterward, "Guess we've never had any student earned such a low percentage before..."

Judge Judy is known for telling it like it is.  She wants people to take personal responsibility, parents to be parents, teenagers to know the consequences of their actions, no more excuses.  

I must love Judge Judy. I bought one of her books.