I have always joked about writing a book filled with funny stories from teaching. Well a student helped me add one to the collection this week. For the sake of this story our student’s name will be “Bill.”
It is 7:30 in the morning and I have just finished rehearsing jazz band. As the students are packing up their instruments, one boy pulls out a red ball and starts throwing it around with another boy. Although I do not have a sign up that saying no sports in the band room, this was not going to be tolerated. Visions of my new chimes being hit started running through my head. So as I am collecting late grade checks from three students and writing a pass for a student to come in for help during lunch I yell, “No balls in the band room.” Looking back on this situating I probably could have chosen my words more carefully. Seizing the opportunity to get a laugh Bill yells, “I guess all the guys have to leave.” As any teacher will attest to, very often something that you might laugh at in your real life you have to terminate in the teaching world.
So I inform Bill he has a lunch detention that day for the inappropriate comment. He takes his lunch detention as a badge of honor and starts telling everyone how he earned it. My intention of helping him realize that was not the right thing to say was not being accomplished. So I have to think fast before every kid in the room gets pulled into this fiasco. So I go over to Bill and I tell him that if he is so proud of his wit, we should call his mom and he can tell her how he earned a lunch detention. That was the magic thing to say. Bill has never been so quiet ever! He served his detention quietly and was even quiet during band the last period of the day. After school I ran into a couple of Bill’s other teachers and told them the story. We shared a good laugh at how dumb my comment was and on how you just have to bite your cheek sometimes to keep from laughing.
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