the one who bit me

Today when I returned to teaching my class, the class the student teacher has been teaching for the last four weeks, I was excited to be there.  I wanted to make it a fun and exciting class and I had all kinds of great ideas.  But so did the office.  A sign-up sheet was sent out for Track and Field Day and we were required to get all the kids signed up for various events.  This killed off the first half the block in a chaotic flurry of confusion.  Then, we attempted one activity which was almost immediately interrupted by a "Code Red" drill, which is a disturbing new drill we now have in addition to fire drills in which we have to pretend there is an armed intruder in the school and close and lock all the doors, turn off the lights, and have the students hide under their desks (or in the theatre, hide in the corners).  

So it was pretty much a write off.  Tomorrow is our last class together before the term changes and a new crop of kids will arrive, just dying to learn how to keep their feet off the theatre seats and to be quiet during performances (such fun).  So I'm going to do the Great Egg Drop tomorrow.  They have to work in teams with various restrictions, like blindfolds and gags, to package up a raw egg in a capsule that is supposed to keep it safe... and then we catapult the eggs off the catwalk and see how many survive.  I'm betting none, and I'm also betting that they'll like it that way.   Brats.

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This morning two of my grade ten boys asked if I would be in their scene with them.  My standard answer to this common request is NO because otherwise I'd spend all my time in rehearsal and on stage rather than doing the things I need to do like supervise, mark, and provide feedback.  So I said no... and then listened as they tried to convince me.  

We are studying Theatre of Cruelty, a style of theatre which is designed specifically with the hope of making the audience feel uncomfortable to some degree, or force them to change, stretch, and emerge altered in some way.  Their plan, the little maniacs, was to have me tell them they were performing first and then for them to tell me in front of the class that they were unprepared to present their project.  I was supposed to tell them off for wasting their time, and they would argue with me and say I hadn't given them enough time, I had given unclear directions and was an all-around horrible teacher.  I would tell them to perform immediately or accept a zero, and they would swear at me and slam out of the room.  At that point they wanted me to throw my markbook on the floor and chase after them into the hallway, leaving the stunned class staring after us in horror.  Then, having given them a split second to sit in shock we would all re-enter together and take a bow.

Wow.  Well who could resist that?  It was just too tempting.  And because the two boys proposing the plan actually ARE two little slackers who often need to be barked at to get any work done it was completely plausible that we would have an altercation like this.  So I agreed.  During the rehearsal time they pretended to fool around and I pretended to nag at them - which didn't require any rehearsal since this is what we usually do anyway.  And then their performance began, ending with the dramatic slamming out the door.  When we re-entered and the rest of the kids caught on to the fact that it had been a play, they were delighted.  The two guys were congratulated roundly for their performance and the best part, from my perspective, was that I think I managed to hook them into being creative and putting more effort into their work in the future - with the positive reinforcement coming from their peers which is always more effective than having it come from me.  Hooray for teachable moments.  Hooray for successes in education.

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Speaking of education, it's now time for me to do some studying before Shawn gets home from work.