April 29, “Don’t”

Luckily, today was a better day. Plus, I received the good news that I get to help out with the local high school English debate team. I’ve been assigned to the local girls high school and I’m excited to team together and establish absolute dominance over everyone.

Not to mention, I’ve seen girls from this school before in the days when I rode the bus to my travel school. They seemed chatty and good-natured. I look forward to learning about them over the next six months.

My fourth grade lesson was well received, too. I printed out our noun vocab words, just three, and for our new verbs I had the students look at the vocabulary list in the chapter. I mimed, they guessed. Since we were practicing negative commands (“Don’t…”), I let them boss me around.

One class had told me not to sit, walk, talk, or breathe, so I fell to the ground to play dead. If fourth graders gave standing ovations, I surely would have gotten one.

In another class they told me not to talk or whisper or sit or look so I ended up in a crouch, shuffling around the room with one eye open while their weird little brains concocted even weirder commands.

One boy blessedly said, “freedom!” and I was released. I have no idea where he learned this from, maybe a video game, but I love seeing their language put to use. In the hallway I saw groups of boys from earlier classes telling each “don’t __!” almost in a mirror of Simon Says.

I also learned that even the more obnoxious classes will quickly zip up if you threaten to erase the points they earned in a game.