It was a very bizarre day. We had the farewell assembly for the seniors. The schedule was all askew (to accommodate that farewell assembly), and the school was a bit unsettled. (This happened the same day as the class described in yesterday's post.)
But as per normal, I was asked to cover an extra period that day.
I opened the door to the classroom, and I ran smack dab into a ping pong table. Where the teacher and the librarian were playing.
It took a minute for the teacher to remember that he had a meeting to get to (he wasn't sure why I was there initially), but the two men kept playing. The librarian won. And the teacher got ready to go to his meeting.
I was directed to a seat. There were four students in the class. (More were enrolled, but the rest of them were seniors. After the assembly, the seniors were off on their end-of-year activities. The seniors are effectively done for the remainder of the school year, and they won't be in class again.) The students all had seats--strewn about the corners and edges of the room. And they were actually working.
I learned that there is an end-of-year staff ping pong tournament. There were brackets taped to the classroom door and everything. The librarian was the two-time defending champion. And the government teacher was up next.
But he hadn't arrived yet.
They tried calling him. On the phone. But he wasn't picking up. Someone wondered about his class--to be reminded that he taught a senior class. The students were gone. But his classroom was about five doors down, so the librarian stuck his head out and called. But still nothing.
They decided he got 15 minutes before he forfeited.
As soon as they set the timer, the government teacher arrived. Followed shortly by the head janitor.
The librarian defeated both easily. He's on his way to a third championship. But the other bracket needed to be decided, so they were done. They all left us.
And the kids continued working (they were doing makeups for stuff they hadn't completed yet).
Yep, it's the end of year crazies...
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
13 comments:
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The best ping pong player I've ever met is my 96 year old grandfather. At 82 he was schooling my 23 year old brother in law. It was something to see. Seriously.
ReplyDeleteThat is very funny. I love that there were brackets and everything.
ReplyDeleteThat's hilarious! I need to work at this school.
ReplyDeleteThey can have fun...
DeleteI think that’s neat. Good for the teachers. They deserve a little fun time.
ReplyDeleteThat is so awesome! Every school should have something like that. It'd be fun.
ReplyDeleteWow. You know...when teachers were all tucked away in their teacher's lounge, I always just assumed they were grading papers and sitting around talking about intellectual stuff. It never occurred to me as a student that teachers could have fun, too!
ReplyDeleteGrading papers, check. Sitting around talking, check. Talking about intellectual stuff...not so much. Sometimes it's fun to be the fly on the wall in there.
DeletePing pong is serious business. :)
ReplyDeleteI kind of like the idea of a ping pong tournament with the staff. Makes the end of year crazies a bit more crazy indeed!
ReplyDeletebetty
How fun is that and power to the librarian! I always knew something wild was going on in the Teacher's lounge
ReplyDeleteGood on the teachers. We had dart boards and miniature basketball hoops in our staff room at the end of last year. Stress release put there by the Guidance Counsellor.
ReplyDeleteSounds like fun. Although, dart boards? I kinda think darts might not be a good idea to put around stressed people.
Delete