I sat in the back of the room, trying not to go crazy watching the same video for the fourth time. One boy got up to staple something. The stapler jammed.
Why he had to get up in the middle of the video is beyond me. It's a middle school thing. They have to do things right now. They haven't yet figured out that there are things that can wait until a more appropriate time.
The boy brought the stapler over to me. I went about removing the stuck staple. (I'm good at this. I eventually got the staple loose.)
So, I was distracted. And several girls took advantage of my distraction.
In order to keep the floors fairly scratch free, each chair has a cut tennis ball slipped over each leg. (I'm sure you've seen this trick used on walkers.) The tennis balls work pretty well. The only problem is that sometimes they fall off the chairs.
One of those tennis balls had come free, and four girls decided that kicking it around was a good use of their time. And they thought that I wouldn't notice as I was busy. ("She's fixing the stapler.")
Once I got the stapler fixed, the girls stopped their game. A couple times later one would kick the ball to another, and as they did it quietly, they thought they got away with it.
At the end of the period as they were packing up, I asked the girls if they enjoyed their game with the tennis ball.
"You saw us?"
Um, yeah, I did.
They had the decency to look embarrassed. I mentioned that in the note to their teacher. He can take that into consideration while he considers their consequence.
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