Monday, April 22, 2013

Flip Them the Bird!

*from a chapter on distractions*
Schools are placed where the unpredictable happens all the time. That is the result of having a large number of children of various levels and backgrounds collected in one place. A place where nature also exists. Nothing ruins a lesson like nature.
I have had birds fly through my classroom and perch on a stack of books. You could be Jaime Escalante, you are not getting anyone to focus on fractions with a bird in the room. That bird will be the center of attention until you can get it to fly away. How does one get a bird to fly out of a room? This wasn’t a class in college. It wasn’t a lesson. I took no Avian Distractions 101. I don’t want to chase it around the room with a yardstick. What if I hit it on accident? Do you want to murder or cripple a bird in front of your class? I don’t want to run at it wildly waving my arms and making hooting noises. What do birds, and most other animals, do when they are startled? Yeah, I don’t need to be cleaning that up, adding to the already ruined lesson. The best thing to do, it turns out, it to shut all the windows, turn off the lights, and open one door. The bird should fly to the light. Should. Otherwise I’m taking my class outside. I’m giving up the room to the bird. He wins. We yield.

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