In a fitting end to a summer school session that began with an admnistrator telling us that “these kids have been beaten down all year long,” this group of enjoyable youngsters has proven that they are no slouches when it comes to administering a little beat-down of their own.
After returning from the restroom, one of my students informed me that there was huge, buzzing, green-backed beetle bouncing back and forth in the hall outside my door. I stepped outside to have a look, and of course it turned out to be one of those situations where I couldn’t resist taking one or two awkward swipes at the dive-bombing insect. One or two turned into 15 or 20, as my competitive side got the better of me. Next thing you know, I’m having a serious, cooperative, hands-on lesson with one of my students on how to swipe a bug out the sky. Thankfully no one came upstairs, or they would have seen me and one student twirling, ducking, leaping, and pawing at the air. Finally we chased it into another teacher’s room (it was empty, except for the teacher). Finally, my professional instincts got the better of me, and I delegated the task of bug-capture to my student, and began walking back across the hall. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a veritable colony of these beetles meandering about the outside of another classroom door.
I made the mistake of poking my head inside the classroom to check with the instructor as to the bug-status of his room. He told me that he had killed three already, and then all hell broke loose in his room. I shut the door quickly, and promised to round up the remaining critters on my own (but not before leaving him to contend with small-scale chaos. I could hear him accusing various students of releasing the horde of beetles through the door.
Finally, with the help of my student, I rounded up the beetle battalion into a Yuban can, and sent him outside to release them. I’m not sure of who brought the bugs to school, but all but one of the beetles refused to fly, so the joke sort of fell flat. It made for a nice end to one of the wackiest summer school sessions I’ve ever been a part of.
Overall, this summer was a huge improvement from last year. But I hope, in the future, we will refrain from referring to summer school kids as helpless victims of the beat down.
Farts and Letters 