Out Of The Mouths Of Babes...

Sometimes the kids I teach really kill me!

Picture the scene: the end of the school day. Everything's packed up, and the chairs are up on the tables, but the bell hasn't actually gone. Woe betide any teacher who lets her class out early. So, to fill up the time, I say a few sentences to sum up the lesson. Most of the youngsters are listening. One is mucking about with a chair, scraping it along the table top. These are Science Lab tables, so the effect is a bit like nails on a blackboard. I get a bit tetchy, and tell him to stop making that awful racket when I'm talking...

...out of the corner of my eye, I see him grin, and very quietly lift the chair up by the legs, and then put it down again. This is, actually, quite funny, as he hasn't really disobeyed me. Of course, I'm not going to admit it...

So, I inform him that he now will have a detention... His face fell, until I added "on Thursday" when he brightened up, and cheerfully accepted his fate.

"Hang on," I said, "Are you out on a school trip on Thursday?"

"Yes, Miss!" he replied, grinning.

"Fine. We'll make the detention Friday instead!"

I could almost see him kicking himself...

(And no, I didn't actually give him a detention. I kept him back for a minute after the bell under the pretext of writing the detention in his planner, and then told him he would be flayed alive if he put so much as a toenail out of line next lesson... We both were unable to keep straight faces!)