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Published: April 17th 2008
My students were being naughty stubborn children this week. It doesn’t help that they have a hard time understanding me, but they never listen…to anybody. This does not surprise me as they are 5th graders and are in the prime time for weird behavior. Lord knows I was a disobedient little hell raiser when I was that age. I gave them a spelling test this week; their only homework was the study for the test. It went awful. To spare them from whipping, I decided to impart a different kind of public humiliation on them. Simon Says, in the middle of the school court yard where everyone could see. For those of you who are not familiar with this game (you should be ashamed), a leader- “Simon” is appointed to instruct the rest of the group to do whatever they please. However, if you do something without Simon saying so, you are out. Of course, I was Simon, as I am invariably The Man in their little school lives. My point in playing this game with them was to show them that by following directions, they will be in a better position to succeed. I led all fifty little ankle biters outside. I could already see teachers and students in other classrooms gathering by the windows to see what the crazy white lady was up to. I started out easy on them by having them jump up and down, walk around, or pat their heads. Automatically at least half of them were out on the first shot because they have selective hearing. And then I started to get wild about it… “Simon says start singing REALLY loud, Simon says start dancing, Simon says run around like a chicken!” At this point, the whole class is having a blast watching their remaining class members being subject to public humiliation. I was having a hard time being Simon because I wanted to play so badly with them. The last three remaining were the three most stubborn, rude boys in my class who never pay attention. At this point, it became a dance show down. Now the whole school was watching us out in the open sand area, probably still confused, but laughing none the less. The game most certainly disrupted other classes, but I didn’t much care- the kids had a fabulous time and released energy in a positive way. If I wasn’t before, I am most certainly the radical teacher at the school now. I mean come on, I don’t beat the kids with a metal pipe and I make them do jumping jacks to teach them a lesson. After the game I talked to the students about what they got out of it, to which one of the boys raises his hand and says, “It is good to play around outside, especially for the fat people in our class” and points to a pleasantly plump girl. Moral of the story, 5th graders have no internal censors.
Quote of the post:
“Everybody’s gonna love today, love today, love today. Anyway you want to, anyway you’ve got to, love love me.” -Mika (Love Today)
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anonymous
non-member comment
yo thats our jam!