Coming Clean Part II: I've been lying to my students

At our annual Heritage Night, one of the 5^th grade parents stopped me and said,

“Mr. Lin, you’re a genius.”

Now, I’ve been called many things before, but ‘genius’ was a first for me.  How did I come to receive such a high compliment from one of my parents?

The Ruse

I've been at it again.  Except, this time I'm not swearing in the classroom like I wrote about in this post. Instead, I'm lying to my kids.  This lie is the reason why that parent said that I was a genius.

Our current unit in writing calls for students to write a persuasive essay.  As I was discussing how to teach this unit with one of my fellow teachers, we talked about how it was impossible to persuade someone of anything you don’t feel strongly about.  As adults, we have grown to care about a multitude of different things.  However, a 10 year old’s world is far smaller than ours.  Then, it struck me.

Mr. Lin:         “How about we tell the kids that we are going to cancel recess for the month of December?”

Mrs. P:           “Great idea!  We’ll tell them they can write essays to the principal trying to persuade them that recess is important.”

We presented the idea to the rest of the 5^th grade team, and after making some tweaks to the plan – including getting parents and our administrators in on the hoax – we were ready to put the plan into action.  On Monday, November 5^th, we gathered the entire 5^th grade together for an assembly.  

The Aftermath of a Hurricane

Mr. Lin:         "5^th graders, I have some terrible news.  Because Hurricane Sandy cancelled school for a few days, we lost some very valuable instructional time that we need to get back.  We lost 12 total hours of instructional time, and when we talked to the principal it seems like the only chance we have to make up that time is to use our recess time during the month of December."

(A collective gasp runs through the kids)

Student A:      "We only missed 2 days of school!  Why do we have to take away a month of recess??"

Mr. Lin:         “We have 20 minutes of recess each day so it takes us 3 days to make up one hour.  We’re lucky actually... to make up the full 12 hours it would take us to the middle of January!”

Student B:      “Can’t we stay after school for an extra 20 minutes each day instead? I mean, we NEED recess!!!”

Mr. Lin:         “Unfortunately that isn’t possible.  We’re on your side though.  Us teachers feel that it’s important that students get recess.  I’m not sure what we can do to convince the principal that we need recess.  Do you all have any ideas?”

Student C:      “I’m going to write the principal a letter.  I’m really upset about this.”

Bingo.  After some discussion, we brought the kids back into our rooms, determined to write persuasive essays to our administration.  

The Essays

On Friday, I collected the first batch of essays from my class.  Here are two of them:

Essay 1 – by Alicia*

The 5^th grade has been informed that in December we will not have recess because of Hurricane Sandy.  I wanted to write you this to tell you why this decision is not a wise one.

One reason that I think recess is important for kids is that kids all over the world, especially America, are getting obese.  Having recess might help.  More and more kids are getting obese because of a lack of exercise.  If more kids are obese, there is a higher percent of people dying.  At recess you could play tag, football, basketball, soccer, and more.  Also, monkey bars are a great way for exercise.  So that way kids will exercise and still have fun at the same time.

Another reason that I think recess is important is because it’s healthy to socialize. Socializing can help us in the future.  Some jobs you might need to socialize a lot.  Recess is the perfect time to practice.  We hang out with friends and learn how to speak fluently.

My last reason is we need to get out our energy.  As you might know, kids have lots of energy.  Also a result of us not getting it out is not paying attention in class.  So if you took the only time in the day to let us do that we will go nuts in class, which will waste a lot of time.

I hope these few reasons convinced you.  But my main reason is we need recess.

Essay 2 – by… a student who forgot to put her name on her essay

Do you like recess?  Do you like to talk to your friends?  Do you belive that talk to people is realy important and recess is important?  I belive you need to socilaze, relex your mind, and hang out with your friends.

Do you know that kids need to go outside and socilaze with their friend?  Because if you want to get a good job you need to have a high level of socialze.  Want to know why?  If you can socialze really good you won’t have a hard time explaning yourself.

We have about 6 hours of learning.  We need at lease 20 minutes to relex our mind and play with our friends.  Some students have a hard time focesing in class because they need a time to relex their mind and not think about math, Reading, and writing.

Most Student have friend in different classes lik Aliya and Rosa.  Aliya is in Mr. Lin class and Rosa is in Ms. Dornan class also Ashley and Megan.  Ashley is in Mr. Lin class and Megan is in Ms. Artis class.  Without recess Megan and I wouldn’t be best friends.

Without recess Megan and I wouldn’t be best friends.  Without recess we won’t have a good job.  Without recess it be hard for people to Foces.  Would you like to not have your best friend to talk to or have a hard time to foces?  Would you like that??

What great writing!  How can you argue with that passion?  I think these kids will have their recess in December.  Now if I could get that second student to work on spelling, grammar, and… writing her name on what she turns in.


*Name changed

Boycotting Halloween

Warning:  This post isn't my best effort.  Much like the rest of my day today...

As we near next week’s presidential elections, I’m going to take a stance that is decidedly right-wing.  Halloween is the devil’s holiday, and it should be banned.  Halloween is destroying the youth of America.

Last Week's Warning

Last week, one of my students came up to me to ask a very important question:

Katherine*:  “Mr. Lin, are we going to have homework on Halloween?”

Mr. Lin (false relief in voice):  “I’m glad you reminded me, Katherine!  I had totally forgotten to write that into my lessons.  Wow that was a close one!”

            Katherine: “But I have to go trick-or-treating… you CAN’T assign homework!”

           

The Calm Before the Storm

Yesterday, I greeted my students cheerily in the morning.

            Mr. Lin:  “Good morning, class!  Happy Halloween!!!”

            Student A:  “Are you going trick-or-treating?”

            Student B:  “Where do you live?  I want to come by and get candy from you!!”

            Student C:  “How come you didn’t dress up?”

            Mr. Lin:  “Of course I dressed up.  I have a great costume.  Instead of being a mean teacher, I’m a nice teacher today.”

            Katherine:  “Does that mean we won’t get any homework tonight?”

            Mr. Lin:  “No, that just means I won’t hit anyone with my whacking stick today.  Now take out your Puzzling binders, we’re starting class.”

The Aftermath

Today, as I was checking over homework in class, I noticed something different about the students.  They – even the ones that normally can’t sit still or keep their mouths shut – were remarkably docile.  When Marcus* slurred his words as his eyelids were fluttering shut, I decided to take an impromptu poll of the classroom.

            Mr. Lin:  “Class, if you went trick-or-treating last night, raise your hand.”

All of the kids put their hands in the air.

            Mr. Lin:  “Ok, if you got home later than 8:00, keep your hand raised.”

All the hands stayed up.

            Mr. Lin:  “If you got home later than 9:00, keep your hand up.”

A few hands went down.  A smattering more went down with each hourly increment and I realized that the vast majority of the class had less than 6 hours of sleep – all because of Halloween.  To top it off, my principal walked into my room about 10 minutes after I took this poll and proceeded to observe me teaching a very interactive lesson to a room full of comatose children.  That game we played at the end of class to demonstrate their proficiency?  My students – who love games and are VERY competitive – were fighting to be LAST in line rather than first.   

The devil’s holiday indeed!  I haven’t received my observation report back yet, but I can guess it won’t be the best one I’ve ever received.  Perhaps I should start a movement to remove Halloween from the calendar to save other teachers from similarly horrifying observations.  Either that or perhaps I’ll give in and heed the advice of a 10 year old girl:  no homework on Halloween.  

*Name changed