School is so close to being let out! I can't believe that I've already gotten one year under my belt. I tell my kids that this year they are my guinea pigs, and next year I'll be PERFECT. There will be no more typos on quizzes, no misspellings on the board, no failed mathematics, and certainly no misplaced Promethean board pens. Oh yeah, and no more calling kids by the wrong name. That one has to go. We'll see how far my perfection lasts next year. (I give it 2 minutes)
One of the things that I LOVE about teaching is the humor- whether a kid says something witty in my classroom, or whether I just catch one of our two hundred sixth graders lost in their own little dance in the hallway. Today's humor was a little more serious, though, and it had absolutely nothing to do with students.
Background information: We (the other reading teacher and myself) are currently teaching the book Maniac Magee to our kiddos. Maniac does a lot of "crazy" things in the book (besides bringing up a whole lot of racial issues....which is f-u-n to talk about). For instance, he can outrun any kid in town, unties an impossibly large knot, intercepts a football from the star quarterback, etc. From the beginning of the unit, we knew that we needed to take our kids outside and let them have fun doing some of the things Maniac did. We are calling it MANIAC MONDAY and it will take place this next Monday. We are using it as a motivational tool- students have to keep their grades up and stay out of trouble in order to attend. Right now, out of my 95 kids, 25 are on the no-go list. That means only the kids on top of their game get to have a fun day. The others will be inside with our instructional coach who has promised a "painfully" educational lesson. Yikes!
We are planning to have Maniac Monday in our school's outdoor learning environment. The kids will be contained, which is especially important as we are doubling up our classes. Today we decided to go take a look at the area and figure out how to set it up. The other teacher had just gone down to the 7th grade room to borrow a suitcase from someone. We thought we would use it in one of the activities. When we stepped outside, she left the suitcase by the door, and we propped the door open with a rock. Not 2 minutes later, the assistant principal came out the door and started asking us questions about the bag. Little did we know, but we had set up the perfect school emergency situation: leaving an unidentified piece of luggage in the central area of the school, and exiting the building. What makes it even worse/better is that our assistant principal had very recently been to a training that covered issues like this, so he was on the lookout for situations just like the one we accidently created. At least we know how it would be handled if the situation DID arise!
12 days to go!
-Mrs. Combs
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