Many things have happened since I last blogged, blog. A school year ended. A school year started. I directed another musical, vowed once again never to direct another musical, and have since started the process of planning our next musical. I got a bike and became moderately proficient at the ukulele. I have a new class of 27 pubescent darlings and so far I have had zero phone mishaps with their parents.* We have had three field trips, including one that was overnight and one where several kids fell in a river. We just sent home first trimester report cards and I'm in that weird brain space where everything I think turns into a third-person report card comment about my own life (M. is making steady progress in her dental hygiene. Her main goal moving forward is to develop a consistent habit of flossing every day). And, somewhere in there, I ran the following experiment on the children.
* However, if last year is any indication, I am due for one soon. A couple months after the pilgrim incident, I called a different student's mom, thinking I was calling back my own brother, and led with "Sorry, I just had to Snapchat a picture of a vanity plate" rather than, "Hello." These people trust me with their children.
My co-teacher and I posted this on the projector:
Your goal: Every single student in the class will have the correct answer to the riddle written clearly on their own piece of paper. Your teachers will not answer any questions or make any comments.
The Riddle:
- A man has to get a fox, a chicken, and a sack of corn across a river.
- He has a rowboat, and it can only carry him and one other thing.
- If the fox and the chicken are left together, the fox will eat the chicken.
- If the chicken and the corn are left together, the chicken will eat the corn.
- How does the man do it?
Then we walked silently to the back of the room and sat. And they started raising their hands. And we sat. And more of them started raising their hands. And we sat. And they turned around and looked at us and raised their hands more aggressively. And we sat. They were more silent than when they are supposed to be silent.
Eventually, they remembered that they are capable of talking, and they tried to collaborate to solve the puzzle. All in all, they worked together better than last year's class, to whom we posed the same challenge, and who just yelled at each other for fifteen minutes despite the fact that several of them had done the puzzle the year before in a special math group and knew the answer from the beginning. So, it was better than that. But did they achieve their goal? I will let you judge that for yourself based on this selection of my favorite responses:
It is good to remember, when I am starting to feel frustrated at a student who is behaving in a counter-productive or illogical way, that logic can be subjective. Perhaps the student who perpetually loses her homework and then insists that it is actually being stolen from the turn-in bin is just stuffing the fox in the sack, so to speak.
Or, you know... pig.
That is specifically the thing he cannot do.
Such a seamless transition from meticulous logic to animal cruelty.
This one is sideways because I don't know how to use a computer, but I love everything about it and you should turn your head to read it. Are you also picturing a giant ear of corn wearing water wings?
This poor fox!
You got it.
It is good to remember, when I am starting to feel frustrated at a student who is behaving in a counter-productive or illogical way, that logic can be subjective. Perhaps the student who perpetually loses her homework and then insists that it is actually being stolen from the turn-in bin is just stuffing the fox in the sack, so to speak.
Or, you know... pig.
* However, if last year is any indication, I am due for one soon. A couple months after the pilgrim incident, I called a different student's mom, thinking I was calling back my own brother, and led with "Sorry, I just had to Snapchat a picture of a vanity plate" rather than, "Hello." These people trust me with their children.
