Hide the Tape

While talking about my "Oh no, I have to spend money" dilemma, I completely forgot to mention what little angels my students have been this week.  On the morning of April 1st, one of my students asked if they were allowed to prank me.  Being a good sport, I said, "Sure, bring it on.  As long as it doesn't involve glue."  I ate those words later. 

First I attempted to get a drink of water from my sports bottle, but nothing came out.  It turned out that there was a piece of tape over the nozzle.  Later I tried to get a drink of water from my fountain (my classroom has its own drinking fountain), and it sprayed all over me.  That would be because the kids put a piece of tape over the spout.  After that the counseling department called, but when I grabbed the receiver, it was stuck.  It had been taped down to the base.  Once I got it unstuck and began talking into the phone, the secretary told me it was muffled--she couldn't hear me.  I examined the phone to discover that, over the speaker, there was (you guessed it) a piece of tape.

Throughout the day, I also discovered my microwave and my refrigerator had been taped shut.

To their credit, the kids did ask me permission first.  And they did abide by my rule of "no glue."  But I have learned now that when kids ask me for permission to pull pranks, my answer should be a resounding hell no.  Or I at least need to stock up on tape, cuz I'm running low. 

In somewhat related news, a parent of a struggling student decided to sit and observe my class during 1st and 2nd period today.  I was actually looking forward to it, because this is my best class, and I was doing a creative lesson.  Now you would think that students would be on their best behavior when another adult is in the room.  But that would be a NO.  Halfway through the period, one of my students shouted out, "Mrs. P., for April Fools I convinced my mom I had knocked up some chick.  She was MAD!"  I think the parent's jaw just about hit the floor.  I mean, this isn't a high school class.  My students are 12 and 13 years old. And we weren't even talking about April Fool's.  We were talking about bibliographies.  It's like he stored this one little tidbit in his head for the explicit purpose of pulling it out at an opportune time. 

Once the shock wore off from that, a student, who was researching facts from different resources laying on his table, blurted out, "Mrs. P., is URANUS really the name of a planet??"  I said, "Yes, it is, but it's not pronounced 'your'--um--hey, who wants to talk about Pluto?  Let's talk about Pluto!" 

The final straw was during student presentations.  A group of four students came up to share out their research and put their bibliography sentence strips on the board.  One student was wearing a giant paper diaper (which was disturbing in of itself) on account of "dress like a baby" day.  While his group was sharing, he took a yellow marker and, before I could contemplate what he was up to, he colored his crotch yellow.  I said "Chase!  WHY?!"  He said he was trying to be an 'accurate' baby and then turned around, showing the class the brown blob he had colored on his ass.  I told him that I was officially going to require therapy for the rest of the week.

And this is my best class.