You Know It Ends In A Fiery Plane Crash, Right?

I was recently telling my wife about my day and mentioned the “I can’t trust myself” drawers. “Huh? What’s that?” she asked. I explained that I have a drawer for each of my four classes called the “I can’t trust myself to hang on to this” drawer. They are for students who have trouble keeping or finding unfinished work. She started laughing. I don’t know why, but she found it hilariously funny.

I told her I reserve the right to entertain myself and I do so as often as possible. This conversation got me thinking about all the things that have made me smirk, smile, laugh and giggle this year.

• Like my “Do Now” in the middle of the space unit that asked: “What is the Dark Side of the Moon?” I confirmed that none of my students are familiar with the work of a little known progressive rock band called Pink Floyd.

• Or my Paul McCartney question on a “Do Now.” They now know Sir Paul is in the Rock ‘n Roll hall of fame three times and Kanye West is just not that important (but don’t worry, I’m gonna let you finish.) 

• Watching students, who had been warned repeatedly about keeping all four feet of their chairs on the floor, tumble out of those tilted-back chairs. When I say students with an “s” on the end, I mean quite a few. How can you help but laugh as each one climbs up off the floor with a sheepish grin on his face? (Yes, it is always boys).

• The “I can follow instructions” test hidden within a chemistry test. Yes, only one student successfully read and followed the instructions.

• My intonation of “number nine, number nine” whenever we do problem number nine in math. They don’t get it but it makes me smile.

• Since my room doesn’t have much of a view, I use my projector to show live cam views from around, literally sometimes, the world when the kids are working hard. These always make me smile. The ISS live cam is one I project a lot. Here are a few of my favorites:

International Space Station 

San Francisco  

Lithuania

Rome

• I really enjoyed the subtle sabotage of my students who were reading To Kill a Mockingbird. “Have you gotten to the plane crash yet? You know it ends in a fiery plane crash, right? Oh, sorry, no more spoilers.” It went to a whole different level when students started cranking their friends on the plane crash thing. 

I do like to have fun and I often include my students in my jokes, but sometimes they don’t get them. And that’s fine. They are young and inexperienced. The kids are funny in their own right and they often make me laugh. For me, that’s one of my favorite parts of being a teacher - laughing with my students (and, occasionally, at them).

This is not how To Kill a Mockingbird ends.