Great Moments in Teacher Life

So, on Fridays, our schedule is a little different. Our lunch is about 20 minutes later than the other days of the week and so we change our classes a little differently, too. My second period class leaves and the third period comes into the room. They simply put down their backpacks and then stand behind their chairs, because we then leave to go up to the playground for recess. Recess is twenty minutes, then they line up and come downstairs to the cafeteria for lunch, also twenty minutes. All together, including walking time, there is 45 minutes for the students for recess and lunch.

We teachers get 35 of that for our lunch, and the final ten minutes is spent in the cafeteria, supervising the last half of the students' lunch period. We walk around and dole out napkins or taco sauce packets or sometimes (I like to do this) use the little broom and long-handled dustbin to sweep up stuff that is on the floor. It helps the custodian, and also keeps our cafeteria from becoming trashy. Wrappers, napkins and crumbs are my usual targets, but any day that corn is served, then I'm really busy sweeping up kernels. I don't know why corn is so hard to get all the way to their mouths. I'm on top of spills, too.

So, you can see that my lunch time is pretty precious, and none of us are too willing to have to enforce our universal threat of making students stay in the classroom for part of their recess to either finish work, or just as a consequence for wasting our work time by talking or other misdeeds. I know that each of us has said to students, who have had to stay in from recess for even a few minutes, that this is "messing up my lunch time, you know."

Well, on Friday, the students for third period came barreling through the door like a landslide of rolling boulders. They put down their backpacks and about five of them were roaming the room and provoking others as though recess were being held in my classroom. The volume level was out of control. I used all my signals, I put up on the screen my procedures list for preparing for recess. That got about half of them to remember what they were supposed to be doing. I looked around the room. I directed the teacher stink-eye toward a couple of the continued talkers. Finally, I said, "Do you want to just stand here all recess or do you think you could get quiet so we can go out into the hall." 

One of the Out-of-Control-Nearly-Every-Minute fellows called out, "Won't that mess up your lunch if we stay in from recess?"

BINGO!! I looked at him, and I said, "Well, as a matter of fact, it won't."  I marched over to my desk, pulled my lunchbox from a shelf, and plopped down in my chair. I opened my lunch box and extracted my sandwich and a baggie of grapes. I pulled out a napkin and reached for my drink. I took a bite of the sandwich and looked straight at him.

"Actually, it won't be any problem at all. I have my lunch right here. I'm going to eat it. If you'd like to spend recess watching me eat lunch, then fine---keep talking. If you'd prefer to play for recess, then you will be quiet so we can go out in the hall." And I took another bite of my sandwich.

The look on his face was AWESOME!! He didn't even speak! His jaw dropped. The other students turned on him with hissing, "[Horrible-talking-pest] you better shut-up right now!! We want to go to recess!" The room became deathly silent.

I ate a grape.

Then I stood up and noted that it was quiet enough to walk into the hall. So, we did, and they went up to recess. And once again, Age outwits Youth.

Now, I didn't entitle this "Great Moments in Teaching" but "Great Moments in Teacher Life"---there's a distinction and I hope you see it.