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Monday, June 23, 2008

The Surreal Class

It occurred to me last week that it has been a long, long time since I have done a question for INTERACTIVE MONDAY. As I was having that thought, an easy question came to mind as well.

Looking back at the just-concluded school year, what was your most, or one of the most, surreal moments? I define a surreal moment as something happening that makes you just scratch your head and wonder, Did that really just happen? How bizarre!

For me, one such moment came toward the end of the school year. A student had enrolled in my class in late March, so he had only been around for about a month and a half when this happened. Nevertheless, this kid was truly a Chris Farley, John Candy type. A very large, happy-go-lucky, let-me-entertain-you type of kid.

The totally surreal moment came one day after recess, when my class was lined up to take their restroom break. As was usually the case, the boys were being louder than a high school heavy metal band. Suddenly, I hear this kid say to another boy, "Hey, you know those Subway commercials?"

Then he starts singing the jingle that goes with these Subway commercials, the ones for their five dollar foot longs.

"Five... Five Dollars... Five Dollar Foot Looooong..."

Then the REALLY surreal moment came along -- all of the other boys in line started singing the jingle along with him! So suddenly I've got this line of about 10 boys all singing about five dollar foot longs, and doing the accompanying hand motions.

Wacky.

OK, YOUR turn! Let's hear all about your most surreal moments from this past school year! Just leave them as a comment!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK, my surreal moment from Student Teaching --

Gill was my "problem student." Most days, he refused to participate in any class activity, and you could bet that he wasn't about to take part in a class discussion. You know the kind of kid I'm talking about. He wouldn't do anything he didn't want to do.

On the day my college supervisor came to observe me teach, I was stressing about Gill and how he was going to totally embarrass me. My CT and I had even considered sending Gill to another classroom during my observation. I decided to keep him in the room, sitting him in the front of the class near me so he couldn't get into too much trouble.

So in comes college supervisor as I am leading the class in a direct/indirect object game I had created. She sits down in the back of the class, and Gill's hand shoots up. Oh, no.

"Yes, Gill?" I ask.

"To answer your question, there is no indirect object in that sentence, because there is no direct object. And like you said, 'You cannot have an indirect object without a direct object!'" Gill answers authortatively, slowly turing his head in the direction of my supervisor. He glances at her, then turns to face me again, giving me the wink and the gun.

I thought I would lose it it front of the whole class. Gill knew I depended on him that day, and he totally came through for me!

Mister Teacher said...

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!
What age group are we talking about here?

Anonymous said...

6th grade ;) Gotta love 'em

100 Farmers said...

My 2nd period had two extremely smart but misdirected jokers who frequently disrupted class with off-task comments. About three weeks before school got out, we were working on projects and the two of them were actually sharing a laptop at a desk quite nicely even though we were getting serenades from snippets of songs from them. Suddenly John sings out quite sweetly, "How come you never hold me after we make love?" Unfortunately, he happens to be looking into the face of his co-jokester as the words leave his mouth. The class goes dead silent and I wasn't quite sure who had the more horrified look on his face, John or co-jokester. "No, no, Miss, no, no, no," yells out John. The class dissolved into laughter and I had to walk outside because I was laughing so hard. Karma has a way of evening the score.

Anonymous said...

One day this spring when we were covering static/current electricity in science, I brought a large van de graaf generator to class. I turned it on and held a metal wand near it, so the students could see the electric sparks generated. (At the same time, static electricity was building up on me.) I then reached out and touched a student, giving him a shock (I also received a shock). When the students realized how this occurred, instantly twenty-five students all rushed from their chairs and surrounded me, touching me over and over so they could get a shock...and of course every time they felt one, so did I. After I had been shocked about 15-20 times in quick succession, I finally managed to push my way through the students and unplug the machine. After I ordered all the students back to their seats, I noticed one girl was crying...I asked if someone had tripped or shoved her and she said, "No, everybody else got shocked except me!"

Mister Teacher said...

Great stories!