Nuts? Balls? Testicles? What Do You Call Them?

I am writing this after reading Baby Sideburns posting on Facebook about a post on People I Want To Punch In The Throat's blog.

This past June I was approached by one of Handsome's teachers. She wanted to me talk to my son at home about something that had happened in school. Apparently, my innocent 3rd grader, has some not so innocent classmates in his class and because of this; his father and I had to have a conversation about his "testicles".

During a discussion in class, kids were discussing things they like. Someone liked watching horror movies, another kid liked his collection of army guys, my son, sitting in a room with many therapy items said, "I like balls." My literal boy looked around the room when it was his turn and glanced at the first thing he saw. He saw balls, many colorful balls. Sounds innocent enough right?!

No! What happened next was that all the boys started laughing, my very literal son got very defensive and the teacher than asked another boy to explain to him why they were laughing, I guess she was too nervous. Whatev, so from another 3rd grader with an adult in the room, my son was told that it is a part of the body that is inside his underwear, "the two things that hang down". Ummm...

OK...so let's see:

My innocent son who was literally talking about balls, the kind we bounce, throw, play with in school, gym class, etc., was laughed at because he didn't know that some kids don't know the literal name for them as my son does.

A teacher, instead of reprimanding the kids for laughing at another child's favorite toy decides that it is more important to fill my son in on the "other" word for testicles. AND..she not only fills him in on it but decides that it should be explained by another child.

Ummm...excuse me if I am wrong but why was my son expected to know this in the 3rd grade?

Why was he made to look the idiot of the class because he didn't know the slang term for a body part?

Why does a teacher get to decide when my son should learn slang? WTF?

UGH...still pisses me off to think of this.

There was also a tiny discussion about what we call our friends. I say my girlfriend; Teresa, Clarissa, Diane, etc. BUT when he said someone in school was his boyfriend, again, he was made to look stupid.  Boy and Girl speak can be very confusing for an innocent, literal child.