I have a class of six boys between the ages of eight and
nine. They are the result of two classes combining together. Three of the
original four kids get along well. The fourth boy is very, very odd and really
has to work through some emotional issues (case and point, he’s severely
addicted to Uno and has a mental breakdown if he cannot play it)—I think
parents telling him “no,” would probably be a good start. Anyway, no one likes
this child--except our boss. The second class was made up of two eight year
olds, one boy is good-natured and determined, while the other kid is from one
of those families—everyone groans when you talk about one of the three brothers.
This last boy is toxic in a class of more than two.
I really wanted to do something fun with this class and most
students like “running dictation.” In this version, I have written a numbered
list of vocabulary words, I call two names and a number. The two students run
to the back of the room where the list is, find the number, race to the front
and write the word associated with the number. In a normal game, I’d make the
team to do a Chinese whispers sort of relay, but since they aren’t exactly team
oriented, I decided to skip that part of teamwork and just break them into groups
for points. To make it “fair,” I wrote down team names on a paper and made the children
blindly choose their teams—I wasn’t monitoring well, thinking probability would
be in my favor—and the three best students, who like each other, got on the
same team. That left the good natured kid with the emotionally disturbed boys.
While Cooper and Bobby scowled at each other, Ted threw his hands in the air
and went “Yeah! Fighting Team B!”
Ted volunteers to be first against Tyson. I call out the
number, they run to the list and dash to the whiteboard. They are writing when
Ted glances over to check his opponent’s progress. Tyson drops his marker and
starts screaming, “Hacking! Hacking!” As far as I can figure out, this is
Konglish for looking/cheating. Nothing I do calms him down while Ted just
stands there with his spaced out smile and shrugs his shoulders, now teammates
are fighting. Get that broken up and move on to Bobby and Dustin.
They run to the board, Bobby forgets how to write a U –the
vowel we’ve been studying for two weeks. He starts to glance over, but Watch Dog
Tyson calls him out. Bobby ignores my prompting, goes limp and drops the marker
and scuttles back to his chair where he does his weird limp, blank stare and
cries a bit. He is unresponsive to any comfort and the students are starting to
poke fun, so to divert their attention I call on Cooper and Curtis. Number one
down.
I call a number, Cooper runs to the board and realizes he
doesn’t know the word and runs back, by this time, Curtis knows the word and is
starting to write, Cooper takes one look at Curtis. Where Bobby goes limp and
invisible, Cooper gets animated. Red gathers at his neck and creeps up his
face, his already big head balloons out and his eyes turn black and jump from his face, his fists ball up and he
crushes whatever is in his hand. He screams “No!” I’m afraid he’ll billy goat
Curtis, but instead sits down in a pout, breathing heavily. Number two down.
Ted wants to go again, despite seeing his two teammates bite
the dust. I call out the number over Cooper’s hyperventilating, the boys race
to the front. Tyson finishes first. Ted stops mid word, gives a blank smile and
a shrug and sits down. Man three down. I’ve made a huge mistake. However,
looking at Cooper’s cartoonish face, Bobby’s corpse-like appearance, Ted’s
blank smile and shrugging shoulders, and Curtis’s slightly evil glare over the
retainer protruding cheeks, I can’t help but laugh. I have to take longer than necessary
erasing the three letters off of the board.
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