Once again, for your reading pleasure, I have managed to pull together some of the silliest moments from my time in the classroom with 27 boys...and their shenanigans.
Here goes nothin'....
The Clogged Urinal
There was a week last semester in which one of the urinals in the boys' bathroom somehow became clogged. It's not hard to guess how this happened...bathroom breaks inevitably become an extension of recess because they know I will never, EVER step foot in that bathroom to actually witness the havoc that is wrought behind that door.
Anyway, throughout this week the boys kept telling me that one of the urinals was clogged and I kept sending in work orders, but it wasn't getting fixed. And then...it overflowed. Big time. And one-by-one they all came into the room informing me of the ...contents... that were spilling over onto the floor.
My favorite commentary was from one boy who came in from the bathroom and sat down with a look of disbelief on his face. He just sat there, shaking his head, and said, "I just don't understand how anyone could possibly pee that much!"
An Old Soul
So... one of the boys, despite being very immature, has a very old soul. I think he's treated like an adult at home, and I know he watches grown-up TV shows, so that probably has some effect on him. He's one of those kids who drives me absolutely nuts, but as soon as I'm ready to strangle him he puts me into a fit of laughter.
One day during our vocabulary lesson, I noticed he was totally zoned out -- in another galaxy. I turned to him and said, "Earth to Joshua!"
His reply?
"Grooouund control to Maaaajor Tom"
Out of the mouth of a 10-year-old. Unbelievable.
Seizures?
A few weeks ago, I had the boys break up into small groups. They were all working together on some math problems, and everything seemed to be going swimmingly. Then, one of the boys started twitching his arms and legs and shaking his body in a very bizarre way. (This is not unusual for this child and wouldn't have even made this blog had the following comment not been issued...)
Upon seeing this, one of the boys in his group casually asked, "Joseph, are you having seizures again?"
(Just so you know...this boy doesn't have seizures and wasn't actually having a seizure.)
The Fart Heard Round the Room
I briefly covered this story in my Facebook status yesterday, but I felt it deserved a longer explanation.
We had settled into the classroom post-recess, and were quietly working on our math test. I was grading papers at my desk when I heard it...
It was one of those farts that could have been the movement of the chair or desk on the floor...and it takes your mind a minute to process what you just heard, and decide whether you want to believe it was a fart or not...but it was very obvious to me what it was. A fart.
I didn't look up because I was laughing uncontrollably. Yes, I still laugh at farts. I will probably laugh at farts until I'm 90 years old. I teach 5th grade boys...there is a ceiling to the amount of maturity I will be able to reach.
Anyway, as I was laughing and trying to hide my face, I started hearing snickers around the room. And then I hear something you will ONLY hear in a classroom (or group) of boys: the admission of guilt.
"Guys...I am so sorry. I did not mean to do that. I really thought I had it under control."
Well, this made everyone laugh more. And then, of course, they all look over at me, my head in my hands, convulsing with laughter, and everything falls apart.
I decided this was a good time for the poop talk, so I said to them, "Guys, here's the deal. Children generally have to go number two about 45 minutes after they eat. It's been about that long since lunch. Sometimes when you have to go number two you get gassy. This is totally normal. Everyone goes number two, and everyone gets gassy sometimes. Let's try to get past it."
This is when one of the boys near me leaned over and said, "Ms. Hebert...I need a gas mask for this room!"
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Now I'm just going to list a bunch of funny situations that aren't long enough for me to type into stories, but were still funny enough for me to talk about. Imagine the following as a montage of funny boy-isms.
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A boy comes back into class after using the bathroom with a huge grin on his face -- "for no reason".
A boy casually walks off the playground with a bloody nose, looks at me, and just keeps walking, right on to the nurse's office.
A boy falls out of his chair in the middle of class for no reason.
Two boys break the strip of wood of the kneelers in chapel "on accident" on the same day.
One of the boys gets his legs twisted in the arm holes of his gym bag while he's walking to PE.
A boy falls out of his chair in the middle of class for no reason.
A boy finds a tooth in the mulch on the playground and asks what he should do with it.
When given the "mean teacher look", for who-knows-what reason, a boy responds, "I have a condition."
A boy falls out of his chair in the middle of class for no reason.
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I hope that paints a good picture!
Until next time!
