The noticably less than Amazing Race

I had a frustrating day.

Not so much that I threw a marker across the room or kicked the lockers -- but I definitely thought about it. More than once. In fact, at one point, I did actually walk out of my room and offer up a silent Edward-Munch-like Scream in frustration rather than literally kick the lockers out in the hallway.

What has me so frustrated is my afternoon class's apparent apathy towards all things school related. I feel like I should bring in a crate of Zyrtec tomorrow, because my kids seem to be allergic to thinking.

Oh, but they certainly like to race to be first! When I ask an open-ended question, oh how they race to be the first to answer. Nevermind whether or not the answer is in any way, shape, or form reasonable -- all that matters is that they were first.

"Is 3 smaller than 10?" I'll ask.

"YES!!" 1 or 2 of them will shout. 5 or 6 will then do their best parrot impersonation and shout the same thing.

When I look at them strangely and ask again, incredulously, most will change their answer to "NO!" but I can see the furtive look behind the eyes of the front-runners that tells me they are thinking that they're the bomb now, they got their answer out first.

And then I have the kids that like to race to be done with their work first. They whip out answers to all the problems, then sit there staring at me, as if to say, "What else ya got?" Usually, when I go look at their answers, there are several mistakes, but these kids would never know it because they don't ever look at what they've written down.

I would tell them, "Great job, kiddo! You're so awesome at being first that I think you'll be in my class again NEXT year!!" but I feel like irony is lost on them.

Besides, they'd probably like the fact that they would be the first in the class to be retained...