Do you have a clean mind?

A florida teacher was recently fired after being placed on suspension for giving her students the following quiz:

Keep Your Mind Clean
Review critical thinking, connotation, denotation, and prefix & suffix clues, insinuation, and allusion.

Oral Instructions: this is a test to challenge your critical thinking. There are NO BAD WORDS. These are common words, used everyday. Listen for the clues. Do not yell out answers.


1. What is a four-letter word that ends in “k” and means the same as intercourse?

2. What is it that a cow has four of and a woman has only two of?

3. What can you find in a man’s pants that is about six inches long, has a head on it, and that women love so much that they often blow it?

4. What word starts with “F” and ends with “u-c-k”?

5. Name five words that are each four letters long, end in “u-n-t” one of which is a word for a woman?

6. What does a dog do that you can step into?

7. What four letter word begins with “F” and ends with “k,” and if you can’t get one you can use your hands?

8. What is hard, six inches long, has two nuts, and can make a girl fat?

9. What four-letter word ends in “i-t” and is found on the bottom of birdcages?

10. What is it that all men have one of; it’s longer on some men than on others; the pope doesn’t use his; and a man gives it to his wife after they’re married?


Here are the same questions, this time with the verbal clues the teacher said she gave, which some dispute to see if that makes a difference for you.


1. What is a four letter word that ends in k and means the same as intercourse? Hint: You do it all the time, especially when you shouldn’t, except when your parents ask what you did in school.

2. What is it that a cow has four of and a woman (or man) has only two of. Hint: It’s what makes them outstanding in their field.

3. What can you find in a man’s pants pocket that is about six inches long, has a head on it, and people love so much they often blow it. Hint: woman usually put theirs in a purse.

4. What compound word starts w/ F and ends w/uck? Hint: you always envision red.

5. Name five words, in alphabetical order, that each contain four letters, and end in u-n-t. Hint: one is the name for a female relative.

6. What does a dog do that you step into every morning? Hint: There was a time a female was restricted from this.

7. What four letter word begins w/ F and end with K and if you can’t get one, you use your hands? Hint: Think Medevial Times

8. What is hard, unless left in the heat, six inches long (in 3” increments) has two nuts, and has been said to make you fat? Hint: Think of your favorite assignment this year.

9. What four letter word begins w/ G and is found on the bottom of a birdcage? Hint: sandpaper

10.What is it that all men have one of, it’s longer on some men than on others, the pope doesn’t use his, and a woman takes it from him when they are married. Hint: Sometimes it is hyphenated if the woman wants her old one.



Okay now to see how clean you kept your minds....the answers....

1. talk
2. legs
3. a twenty dollar bill
4. firetruck
5. bunt, hunt, runt, punt, aunt
6. pants
7. fork
8. Almond Joy candy bar
9. grit
10. last name

There is some debate on whether she gave additional verbal clues, and she was at one time given the Teacher of the Year award. If the students really thought about it and followed the instructions, it would have been a good example in using creative writing skills and a similar quiz has been around since the 1960's.



FORT PIERCE — A one-time school Teacher of the Year was fired Tuesday after a year-long personnel battle with the St. Lucie County school district over an inappropriate quiz she gave high school freshmen.

Kim Littrell was fired more than one year after she gave a group of low-level Fort Pierce Westwood High School freshmen a 10-question quiz with "inappropriate" material in a creative writing class.

An administrative law judge, after a Division of Administrative Hearings process, found the content inappropriate and recommended her termination. The School Board unanimously approved the action Tuesday.

"The content of the assignment was inappropriate," Susan Ranew, top personnel official, said. "We have to consider the welfare of all students."

Littrell, who had been on unpaid suspension until Tuesday, said she used the exercise to convey critical thinking in a class designed to boost standardized test scores.

So think they were wrong? I do, especially if the verbal hints were given as she and several students have stated.