In the Spotlight February 8, 2009
Posted by timschlosser in Uncategorized.add a comment
The pressure's on.
We’re finishing up the first semester in Room 311, and that has meant a lot of presentations. 7th graders are presenting PowerPoints about their “significant event” research papers, honors students are giving long delayed “book talks” about the novels they read over winter break, and the Room 311 Class President candidates have been making their stump speeches. It’s always fun to watch what happens when you put middle schoolers in front of the room. Each student’s uniquely quirky personality is under the white-hot light of peer scrutiny. Understandably, some wilt in the heat, looking at their shoes and mumbling their way off the stage. No amount of lecturing about eye contact and voice volume can prevent this. But some really shine in the spotlight. One 7th grade honors presidential candidate, Raymond, started his speech with a question:
”How many of you guys have roaches at home?” The class giggled and a few hands went up. “Yeah? Yeah? Well, I’ve got so many roaches in my apartment. And whenever I wake up in the middle of the night I catch them playing poker, smoking cigars”-here he pantomimes a poker-playing cockroach. The crowd goes wild. “And then I say get out of here you nasty roaches, get out!”
Now he’s got the whiteboard eraser in hand and is capering up and down in front of the room, driving the roaches away.
“We don’t want our classroom to be like that. When I’m president, I’m going to make sure everything is clean. No roaches in here. I’ll represent us well to Mr. Schlosser and make sure that everyone gets the job they want” (the President has the power to choose his or her “cabinet” of whiteboard sprayers and paper passers). “I’ll be the best president yet.”
Raymond sits down amid a cascade of applause.
Another competitor followed, and he made a touching, awkward attempt to slipstream off of Raymond’s success:
“Um, well, I have roaches in my house, too…”
Needless to say, Raymond won the final vote.
I’m glad I have students like him to put chinks in the armor of my fuddy-duddy teacher persona. When I saw Raymond up in front of the room, grinning and chasing invisible cockroaches with a whiteboard eraser while the class cheered him on, I thought: that’s the way to live.
