The Day Of No Learning

I'm nearing my third full month as a teacher. I teach 6 - 8th grade music appreciation and orchestra at a public school that is well known for its test scores and well mannered students. As far as first jobs go, I lucked out. Of my 200 students, only about five of them have a major attitude problem. Most of them do what I ask without complaint and apologize when they piss me off. Score for Ms. B.

I have always loved writing and, once I become comfortable in a setting, I like to think I can be quite amusing. Someday I'm sure I'll look back on this and think, "Um. What was wrong with you, you're about as dry as a glass of Riesling."

Thursday brought the wonderful scent of the approaching weekend as well as a new unit in 6th grade appreciation. Of course they were in an uproar about having to learn something new, to which I responded with something that I think contained much dignity and grace. "Fine, then tomorrow will be a day of no learning."

They didn't actually know this was happening. On Friday they walked into the normal classroom. Lights off, The Piano Guys doing their thing on YouTube (getting us in the groove for music, yanno), the whole shebang. I instructed them to face forward with a pencil, everything else under their desk.

"We're just going to do worksheets today."

"Yay!" Fine. I pass them out.

"Ms. B, how do we do this?"

"I don't know."

"What do you MEAN you don't know, you're the teacher!"

"Yeah but you guys didn't want to learn and I didn't feel like putting all of that effort into a lesson plan if you weren't going to care so here are some worksheets. Figure them out, then sit quietly and stare at the wall when you're done. Super easy."

50 minutes later they were leaving my class exclaiming, "PLEASE CAN WE LEARN ON MONDAY?? THAT WAS TORTURE!" They continued on to their next class, telling their friends all about their crazy music teacher who refused to teach them that day. It will only work once, but I love winning.




PS: If you've got a middle school kid who consistently plays his note "D" very out of tune (read: flat), chose your words carefully. Telling him that he needs to practice because his D is always flat is likely not going to result in the response that you're looking for.


Miss B