Five and Dime

I gave a test last week to all my fourth-graders. The test consisted of 20 multiple choice questions and when grading them one student got a grade of 5% and another got a grade of 10%. I swear how do these kids make it to the fourth grade and is it possible to get only one out of twenty questions correct on a multiple choice test?

The Soprano

Last year my school instituted a new policy where as every graduating 6th grader must do six-hours of service work in the community or school. It is a great program which teaches the children giving and gets me eager, willing volunteers

It is also used as a way to “punish” the children who have strayed(for lack of a better word). Well there is this one kid I will called Rob who is one of those kids that every teacher wants to strangle. This is going to sound so wrong, but he has so little to offer you just want him out of the school. He is not one of those troubled geniuses Or slower kid’s who you feel sorry for and want to help, even know they make your life hell. He doesn’t have a screwed up home life, he is just a kid with average intelligence but is a total pain in the ass. He is rude to everyone, both peers and staff. Well he was out of control during lunch recess for a few weeks and as a punishment (which was called a community service project) he stays in the lunchroom the period after he eats and has to monitor the unruly kindergarten students and first graders. The idea is for him to see what it is like for the lunch staff to try and control unruly kids like himself. The teachers love it because they get rid of him one period a day.

So on Friday he was doing his service project and one first grader with an attitude refused to line up. Rob, walked over like a big tough sixth grader and stood in the kids face and said “You better line up!” at this point the kid looked him in the eye and said “No!” and slammed his knee into Rob’s nuts. Rob fell over in pain and crying and the lunch aides ran over to him to see if he was OK. He was sent to the nurse and was teased unmercifully by his peers for the rest of the day.

I know this is so wrong, but I am sure that many of my peers cracked a smile when we imagined Rob on the floor crying at the hands of an unruly first grader. As long as he was OK, and he was, it was fitting.

Pomp and Circumstance

(A few weeks back)

I was doing a lesson and introduced graduated cylinders to 2nd graders. I asked if they knew what they were called and with a few of them we got it out of them. Then a little girl raised her hand and said “Like graduated from school?” and as I said “Yes” I heard another little six-year old humming “Pomp and Circumstance”

The Chinks

(A few weeks back)

We were in teams making cars that were powered by rubber bands and trying to see whose card could go the furthest. I had one group of rather intelligent Asian boys working together. Part of their assignment was to come up with a team name and I overheard one of them say “We should call ourselves The Chinks.” I leaned in and said “How about another name?” and walked away and I overheard one say “Asian Pride” which would have been acceptable but not really the multi-cultural ideals we try to have in my school.

So when I asked them their team name in front of the class I was nervous and one blurted out “Walmart Security.” Where the hell that came from I have no idea?

Nuts?

This happened a few weeks back:
I was teaching a lesson on levers and letting a bunch of sixth graders use levers. The load they were lifting was a hex nut, that I supplied them. After they did a few different experiments and wrote some predictions they children were handed a second nut to test their theories.

The students were all at different points in the lesson and it was loud in the room, so I clapped to get their attention and when they all stopped I asked “Does anyone need a second nut?” suddenly most of the boys laughed and I had to stifle a giggle.

No one admitted that they only had one nut.

So yesterday I talked about my gas in class. Well today in my last period class someone had gas and the kids were trying to figure out who it was. When we were lined up a kid said “Mr. R, someone is farting and it stinks.”

I replied “Yes I do smell it and no it wasn’t me” and I wasn’t lying today.

Crop Dusting

So today I ate some strange Chinese prepackaged meal I never had before for lunch. After lunch I have three straight hours of classes with no breaks, which also means no bathroom breaks. Whatever I ate didn’t sit right and my stomach was percolating and not feeling great. I felt gas in my stomach and I was uncomfortable, and I was debating whether to wait out the last forty-five minutes or see if I could find someone so I could use the bathroom.

I decided to wait it out, which in hindsight wasn’t the best choice. I had a room full of 27 fourth-graders and a rumbling stomach and I needed to pass gas, I needed to do it bad. So I hatched a plan, the first step of which was to get the class loud in case a sound came out. I got them excited and debating about diets of herbivores and carnivores, then I walked towards a spot of the room away from them and I let loose. It was silent but it was nasty smelling. Before it could waif to them I headed back to the group and as I walked through another escaped, I was crop dusting. Maybe ten seconds later I hear “Ill someone farted.”, another kid blamed another. I just commented “Yes someone did have gas and if they need to use the bathroom they should have asked.”

Sometimes you have to do, what you have to do. <Shrug>