A Class With Sixth Graders

I teach 6th grade Creative Dramatics, which usually involves having class in our huge theater where we can get up and move around. No such luck today. We're having to watch a video because we were booted from the theater because of D.A.R.E. graduation. My room is not really large enough for 30 6th graders--I only have 26 desks, so some have to sit in chairs. Anyway, here's a real time update of our day today:

8:00--come in the room and find a seat. Fight over who gets to sit in a chair. There is one desk left and two girls who want to sit together. Neither wants to sit in the desk. They stare at it as if it is magically going to split in two. Needless to say it doesn't, so I have to order one of them to go sit in a chair and leave her bosom friend behind. Tragic.

8:03--everyone is seated. "Why aren't we in the theater?" "Can we go watch D.A.R.E?". etc.

8:05-I tell them they have two choices: Watch a movie--Night at the Museum--or we'll do a report on Shakespeare. "Who is Shakespeare?". "Can we get extra credit?" "What if we want to do both?" "Can I get a drink of water?"

8:07--Movie in and on. Chaos ensues. So-and-so can't see because of X (person, position, angle, height). Much moving and shuffling ensues. Very loud kid in back asks me who is on my poster--it's Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca--so I tell him and immediately have to point out that he did NOT play Inspector Gadget. Loud kid is moved to the front table.

8:09--other kid at the front table is in my office chair with broken arm rests and pretends to be wounded from sharp plastic. I suggest he move, and he's suddenly healed.

8:10-movie starts

8:13--I take up a note from my repeat note offender.

8:16-small scuffle breaks out between the two table boys because the 1st kid is pretending that the piece of arm rest is a pet and he won't let the other kid pet it. Seriously. Sixth graders. I kid you not.

8:19--"Can we skip the beginning and just get to the good parts?"

8:20--one kid is playing with his hair another is kicking a table leg.

8:25--I turn off the rest of the lights.

8:29--random discussions about decapitation, why a skeleton can drink, people's favorite part coming up as he gets off an elevator and runs in a room with Lewis and Clark and the Civil War.

8:35-tremendous laughter when there is monkey pee. Really, who doesn't laugh at monkey pee, though.

8:39-have to tell the girls to quit whispering

8:40-have to have one girl move because she doesn't understand "don't talk"

8:43-one kid is cold.

8:44--two more are cold. and another.

8:43-one more cold, one is hot and one girl likes my eyeshadow. I drag out my pliers to turn on the heat.

8:45-random plot questions

8:47--I see some kid doing a weird hand signal that involves him sucking on his fingers and pointing at another boy (whose mother I taught in 1995. I'm OLD).

8:48-room is unbearably hot, so off goes the heat.

8:48.5-girl with a history of major grand mal seizures gets down in the floor beside her desk and nearly gives me a heart attack. She just wanted to be more comfortable watching the video

8:50-random humming from unknown source

8:51-another kid is doing the finger wiggling move, so it obviously means something more. and yes, it is, a third kid (boy with the pet armrest) is doing it back. I have to fuss and it stops.

8:52-chatty girls redux

8:53--or does it? sheesh. TREVOR, PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN.

8:54--drumming again. LANE, STOP IT!.

8:55-time to wrap up. Frankly, it's easier to have a " real class"