Spontaneity can have its rewards....

...especially for teachers who are trying to get the attention of certain rowdy students!  I am a very spontaneous person and have quite a wit, if I do say so myself.  It is a trait that I believe I inherited from my father, and it is also a trait that runs deep in my family.  There have been many times that my spontaneous wit and sense of humor have helped defuse situations that could have been uncomfortable. 

So, one day last week, one of my classes was out of control in the behavior department.  This is a class of kids that, psychologically speaking,  should have matured over the summer and should be settling in quite nicely.  Not the case so far.  I, also being a very determined person, decided that we would not have a repeat of last year's behavior issues.    As the bad behavior continued and the lesson I had so carefully prepared was falling on deaf ears, I impulsively told the students that they were acting like a bunch of baboons.  Always wanting to challenge me, one of the students boldly asked, "How does a baboon act?"

So, I demonstrated!  Putting my hands under my armpits and "scratching", I definitely got their attention.  I scratched my head, pretended I was picking fleas off of my arms and made the noises I assumed a baboon would make.  "OOOOOh, OOOOOh, OOOOOh, OOOOOh, OOOOOh". The kids were flabbergasted.  They erupted into fits of laughter and they could not beleive I was doing what I was doing.

If this was the way I had to get their attention, then so be it.  I told them it was much better to act like a classroom of students who wanted to learn than to act like baboons in zoo cages who, unfortunately, never get to learn anything of much importance.   It worked!  They began to settle down and listen.  The rest of the class time went well that day. But that was certainly not the end of it.

The next day, one of the female students from that class approached me.  She told me that the English teacher had given the class an assignment that consisted of creating a story board containing information about something that happened in one of their favorite classes.    She explained to me that she couldn't think of anything to do her story board on because most classes are boring!  She said, "Then in History class you started doing that baboon thing and I knew what I was going to do for my story board!"  How flattering!  I say this in jest, of course, but whatever gets their attention...!

The student later brought me her index cards containing  her story board and asked me to look at them.  She had drawn stick figures depicting each segment of that day's class.  For instance, on the first card she had drawn stick figure students sitting at desks and a stick figure teacher standing at the front of the room.  On the back of the card she had written, "we get ready for Teacher Jane's class".  Each card proceeded in sequence and when I got to the card that depicted the teacher with her stick figure arms under her armpits I cracked up!  This student had hit the nail on the head!  On the back of that card she had written, "Teacher Jane shows us how baboons act".  The next card showed the stick figure students sitting straight at  their desks and all looking at the teacher. I thought that female student had done an excellent job of replicating the baboon incident and I knew that at least I had gotten her attention in class that day.

Not the best way to get your class to pay attention, but sometimes a teacher's gotta do what a teacher's gotta do!  Hopefully I won't have to act like a wild animal every time I want the class to listen, but I really think they got the point.  And another teacher got an assignment out of it!

Happy Tales.....