School Days, School Daze

I've been pretty busy lately, mainly because it's the start of a new school year. Here's the best classroom story I have so far.

An early lesson I had planned was for groups of students to draw three cards out of a bag. Each card would have the name of a common household item written on it (rubber bands, plastic bottle, etc.). Their task was to see what kind of instrument one could create with said items.

One group of eighth graders ended up with a plastic soda bottle, a paper bag, and a pencil. Here's what they came up with:

"The musical sounds would be from stabbing the plastic bottle with the pencil. You wear the paper bag on your head to hide the shame."

Sigh.

And since I teach a class where kids are frequently pulled out for one reason or another, leaving the majority of students not feeling accountable for their actions, I wanted to stand up and applaud when I saw this YouTube video. Too bad it's not real (it was recorded for a different school than the one mentioned in the video, but never used in the official school system), but I'm sure many teachers relate to this one.