Classroom Adventures and Misadventures

I think it's time for a little update on my classroom adventures and misadventures.  One day this week, I surreptitiously compiled a little list of what I observed in typing class.  A day or two later, the class took a rowdier-than-usual turn and I didn't get a thing added to the list--because I was busy trying to contain the excesses.

Today it was a very sober bunch because I invoked the principal's observations concerning that rowdiest of days, and informed the class that what we had been doing was NOT WORKING and something needed to change.  I told them the principal had given me some ideas about what could be done to provide motivation.  I also told them they needed to listen to themselves, note excessive noise volume, and simply pipe down.

I want them to speak the truth--not exaggerate wildly, use "labeling" names or put-downs for each other, tell tall tales, speak sarcastically, brag excessively, etc.  Although saying things that everyone understands need not be taken seriously isn't always wrong, I thought I was seeing that too often it was such things that got out of hand and ended up in disorder.  Saying the things I did wasn't exactly what the principal suggested, and I never did get around to telling them what it was.  I guess that will be a surprise.  Surprise or no, they won't like it much.

Unfortunately the day of "the speech" was bad timing in that, when I referred to some of the kinds of behaviors that tend to get out of hand, I used examples from the current day's events, when things had not actually escalated as much as they often do.  Very quickly, push-back developed over the "rightness" of that day's activities, and consideration of previous excesses and potential future excesses was hard to re-focus on.  No shining triumphs here.

Before I share a few of my  pre-showdown observations, I should add that, for the most part, the class tries to cooperate with what I ask of them.  It's just extraordinarily hard to anticipate what might develop,  and steer things in a safer direction preemptively.

Maybe it really is possible to have all the class members of a certain gender afflicted/affected with ADD.  Maybe this "wired" age-group is more affected by technology than we realize.  Maybe it really is as one of my boys told me recently:  "Mom, you really need to get out more," after I told them about a nasty trick some students had played on another student, and I never thought to blame STUDENTS as the perpetrators when I first learned of the trick.  My boys, on the other hand, saw the end of the story right from the beginning, and were sure that the mischief was student initiated.  So many possibilities, most of them nebulous and even more unwelcome than believing that vigilance and persistence are the main things called for.

Here are some reasons to laugh in typing class:

1.  Because someone else is laughing.

2.  Because you are laughing and you find your own laugh amusing.

3.  Because no one is laughing and you wish to relieve the boredom of endless and repetitive typing tasks.

4.  Because someone else just announced "That was the punchline."

5.  Because one "blow" in a blow by blow retelling of a movie episode has just ended.

Here are some reasons to slap the knee or arm or hand of another, elbow (verb form), or shove the chair of someone:

1.  Because they're in front of you and you wish to move past them.

2.  Because they're beside you.

3.  Because they're behind you and not maintaining a sufficient distance.

4.  Because they are also of the masculine gender.

5.  Because a high-five is necessary--at thunder-clap decibel levels.

6.   Because they slapped, elbowed, or shoved you first.

7.  Because this is all in fun, and everyone knows it.

8.  Because you just found a fly in your covered drinking glass--a situation intentionally created by one of your friends.

9.  Because you just mis-typed a letter because someone interfered with your typing.

10.  Because their knee is touching your leg.

Here are some things to argue about:

1.  Whether penguins have knees.

2.  Whether flamingos have backward knees.

3.  Whether "yeah right" is a double positive or a pun or a sarcastic remark, when the discussion is about the double negatives that are found or not found in various languages, and the scarcity or non-existence of double positives in any language . . . I think I'm getting lost in the details here.

4.  Who started that fight in the fifth grade, which was the only time in history that you have been really mad at each other.  They're pretty sure it was the fifth grade because Mr. B was somehow involved.

5.  Whether your memory is accurate about what you said and saw and thought when you were either the new kid in the class or you were a local kid who encountered the just-moved-in kid.

6.  Whether laying out "juice" in Scrabble garnered 30 or 80 points.

7.  Who started that expression. (Everyone wants the honor for having done so.)

8.  Who talks too much.

9.  Whether there are polar bears in Alaska.

 Here are some reasons to launch into a monologue:

1.  No one else is talking.

2.  You just remembered a joke/story/childish behavior in the very distant past and you want to share it.  (e. g. it used to work really well to cry whenever you wanted to get a sibling in trouble)

Here are some reasons to interrupt:

1.  The person telling the story missed a detail.

2.  The person telling the story has it all wrong.

3.  You're extraordinarily adept at anticipating the story's end and you can't wait to share it.

4.  Something to say just now popped into your head and you'll forget to say it if you wait.

Here are some things to capitalize on in a group setting:

1.  Having someone with whom to conduct a burping contest (when siblings prove to be an uncooperative alternative).

2.  Forming a consensus for activities and attendees at an upcoming birthday celebration.

"You're in bed already?"  Hiromi marveled after an especially noisy day of typing class.

"Yes.  I'm tired."  I wonder how I would have felt if a burping contest had actually commenced during typing class.  I'm grateful for small mercies.