Well, duh

I'm teaching physics to 9th grade, urban, impoverished kids. Accessing background knowledge has been a huge challenge this year, so many times we do an intro lab to build a bank of common experiences that I can then refer to. Well, today I was introducing a new concept, crumple zones, as they apply to momentum and impulse. I was showing videos of car crashes and talking about crumpling paper and basically trying to conjure up images of a "zone" or area that extends the time of the collision. (We're doing a lab tomorrow, today was just the planting seeds phase) Think accordion. Well I don't own an accordion or have access to an actual one, and I've never actually seen one in person, but on the fly I brought it up, so I said to the kids, you may not know this instrument, but has anyone heard of an accordion, and 30 faces look straight at me, and in unison said "yes, of course Miss, duh." I was super confused, "really, you all know what an accordion is?" A kid pipes up, "uh, yeah, Miss, we're Mexican."

I sat down and laughed hysterically.