Sunday, November 28, 2004
Human Pong
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was destined to be an interesting day. With a holiday on the horizon, poor weather predicted on the television, and a field trip on the agenda, there were not suposed to be very many students in class. Consequently, I was in the weird position of wanting to teach a lesson, but not being able to follow the core curriculum, because what would be the point with half the students out? i'd have to go back and reteach the lesson anyway. Instead, I introduced a somewhat relevant topic connected with my students' math classes--converting between Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin.
I'll admit, it's not the most exciting stuff, but a few kids really got into the material...I think they liked having a problem they knew they could solve. There were a few kids however, who refused to conisder th epossibility of work on a day before a holiday.
I had assumed this would be the case and in honor of the holiday decided to come up with a creative way of dealing with the situation. An English teacher on the other side of the building and I made a deal. We shared a few students. If one of the children got a little out of hand, we would write a pass for him to visit the other teacher's room. This is old news. Nothing exciting. But...the fun part was, we decided to keep it going. Pass him back and forth. A game of human pong...with a disruptive and hyperactive student as the ball.
And last period, I set the game in motion when one of my whinier kids refused to pay attention, sat in the wrong seat, and frankly pushed the wrong buttons for a teacher after a long day of teaching. I wrote him a pass, called up my friend and told him (basically) that the game was on. We sent the student back and forth between us twice. He went, came back, I made him return to the other room to get a note...when he came back, I caleld my colleague and on his advice sent him off to Room 453. A room which does not exist.
He caught on to that, so I wrote him a pass after apologizing profusely, to Room 129B. Another room which does not exist.
By the time the school police caught up with him...45 minutes had passed. The student was exhausted. I welcomed him back to my room and he sat quietly in the back for the rest of the period.
Worked so well...I'm going to have to try it again sometime. But maybe I'll change it from Pong to Pinball next time... :-)
Oh...yeah, I went back to New England this past weekend for my high school reunion. More on that trip later.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was destined to be an interesting day. With a holiday on the horizon, poor weather predicted on the television, and a field trip on the agenda, there were not suposed to be very many students in class. Consequently, I was in the weird position of wanting to teach a lesson, but not being able to follow the core curriculum, because what would be the point with half the students out? i'd have to go back and reteach the lesson anyway. Instead, I introduced a somewhat relevant topic connected with my students' math classes--converting between Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin.
I'll admit, it's not the most exciting stuff, but a few kids really got into the material...I think they liked having a problem they knew they could solve. There were a few kids however, who refused to conisder th epossibility of work on a day before a holiday.
I had assumed this would be the case and in honor of the holiday decided to come up with a creative way of dealing with the situation. An English teacher on the other side of the building and I made a deal. We shared a few students. If one of the children got a little out of hand, we would write a pass for him to visit the other teacher's room. This is old news. Nothing exciting. But...the fun part was, we decided to keep it going. Pass him back and forth. A game of human pong...with a disruptive and hyperactive student as the ball.
And last period, I set the game in motion when one of my whinier kids refused to pay attention, sat in the wrong seat, and frankly pushed the wrong buttons for a teacher after a long day of teaching. I wrote him a pass, called up my friend and told him (basically) that the game was on. We sent the student back and forth between us twice. He went, came back, I made him return to the other room to get a note...when he came back, I caleld my colleague and on his advice sent him off to Room 453. A room which does not exist.
He caught on to that, so I wrote him a pass after apologizing profusely, to Room 129B. Another room which does not exist.
By the time the school police caught up with him...45 minutes had passed. The student was exhausted. I welcomed him back to my room and he sat quietly in the back for the rest of the period.
Worked so well...I'm going to have to try it again sometime. But maybe I'll change it from Pong to Pinball next time... :-)
Oh...yeah, I went back to New England this past weekend for my high school reunion. More on that trip later.
