Friday was one of THOSE days in 7th grade. It could have been partially because it was Friday... I don't know... but the troops were wild and crazy.
It started out 2nd hour when we had to go to the high school to get vision testing done. Of course, when we got to the room for testing, the class of 3rd graders ahead of us were nowhere even close to being done, so here I am with a group of 7th graders, trying to entertain them in the high school hallway until our turn to enter the room. Things started out ok, but quickly progressed to chaos, despite my attempts to corral the troops. We were sitting on the benches in the long hallway outside the gym and library when someone suggested Simon Says. Always game for adventure, we tried it, but somehow it just wasn't working. Students peeped in the gym windows watching the high schoolers play badmiton and basketball, until finally, the 3rd graders were on the move. Unfortunately, the kindergarteners were also headed by, coming from play practice in the auditorium. One of my exuberants raised his hand as they walked by, saying, "HIGH 5!" to which the little kids all excited did as they walked by him. Until... the teacher caught wind of the excitement and reprimanded MY young man, glaring at me, explaining how difficult it is to teach 'kinders' to keep their hands to themselves.
I thought to myself, "Good thing you don't teach middle school then, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to teach THEM to do that!"
Finally, we are all in the small conference room, waiting to get our vision screening done. Kids are seated in small hard plastic chairs, lined against the perimeter of the wall, with nothing to do, bored from waiting in the hall for 15 minutes, already. The first few to be tested are some of the most active of my group. Finished and bored, they start looking for mischief, so I send 2 of the most miscreant of the group on an errand, back to the middle school to get my diet Mountain Dew. While they are gone, the other boys start this strange exhibit of seeing how much they flab on the bottom of their arms will jiggle. They were laughing and giggling and oogling each other, and somehow at one point, I got sucked into the fracas and lifted my arms to shake my ample old lady flaps, which caused such an eruption of laughter, the slight previous control of the situation I appeared to have dissolved into utter pandemonium. I started laughing and we were making joked about the earthquakes and tsunamis we were causing in China and around the world from the jiggling. The more we carried on, the harder I laughed, causing me to start crying, which made my mascara run, which made the boys laugh more, which made me laugh more, which made the woman doing the vision testing look at us like we were escaped mental patients, which made us laugh more, which made her glare LOUDER, which made us laugh more, which finally led me to leave the room to get a tissue and ahold of myself. FINALLY, all the visions were checked and we were dismissed.....
The rest of the day was moving along normally, until last hour. It was quiet, so very quiet, in prealgebra. It is never dead silent in my classroom. It just isn't. But Friday, it was. In the silence, I hear this slight hint of a squeak of a release of gas from one of them. And, suddenly, it is over, the silence broken by laughter and squeals and embarassing comments and excuses from the gas passer.
Normally, this is where it would have ended, but not Friday, not today when the giggle planets were aligned in perfect symphony..... this day, these boys must share EVERY fart story they know... about each and every one of them, until they start in on the teacher stories. Teachers in their past who have shockingly FARTED in front of them. Despite my best efforts to gain control, the stories started flying.... Apparently, in 5th grade, Mrs. W did it once at the board when she was writing, and it was loud, and such a HUGE one, HER SKIRT MOVED.
And from there on out... it was hopeless......
As it can only be with 7th grade boys.....
and yet, another reason, I love them.....
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1 comment:
Too funny. And too familiar. Don't you hate those times when you know you shouldn't laugh - you KNOW everything will fall apart if you do - but you just can't help it? I've had days where I practically collapsed over some of my 7th graders' antics. Once they see me start cracking up, they take it as permission to go wild. But some days you can either laugh or you can cry. I'd rather laugh.
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