Learning to Laugh with My Students

I apologize for not posting on a regular basis, but there really wasn't anything "blog-worthy" to post, so I didn't. But today was a different story. It will probably be one of the memories of teaching summer school in Philly that I'll never forget.

So I started off my reading lesson today per usual - trying to get the students engaged by talking about something that would interest them. The lesson objective was to be able to compare and contrast main ideas between two passages, so I chose to read two contrasting movie reviews of the summer blockbuster Transformers. I started by asking the students what movies they have seen recently.

Everything was going like it usually does, but I happened to notice that two of my students, Michael and Anthony were unusually giggly for this hour in the morning. I asked them if everything was alright a few times, and they would start to pay attention. No more than 10 seconds after continuing my lesson each time, they would start giggling again. Our room is a science laboratory with a big desk in the front, so to engage the students I usually step around front of it and walk around to keep their attention on me.

Well, Michael and Anthony continued to have these impromptu laugh sessions throughout the first ten minutes of my lesson and I could NOT figure out what was so funny. I looked to my FA (the faculty advisor who monitors our class) and my CMA (corps member advisor) for some direction, but just got blank stares. So I continued.

Finally, Anthony BURST out laughing and I had heard enough at this point, so I turned to him and firmly asked what is so funny and informed him that I would not continue the lesson until we all calmed down.... Anthony: "Mr. McGraw... you got a tail!"

I look around and stuck to my "behind" is a strip of paper that I was planning on taping to the board during my lesson. Must have attached itself to me at some point. Pretty funny. My face got red, I walked around the room proclaiming that they sufficiently embarrassed Mr. McGraw and went on to have a pretty good laugh about it with them. It's all about being able to laugh with your students (when it's appropriate) apparently, I just need to be informed about what the joke is.