Funny Classroom Situation

Yesterday the air conditioner at school broke for the second time this month. It was awful. Only one of the four classrooms has a window that can open, and mine isn't it. The kids were miserable, the teachers were miserable. Very little learning goes on when you're that sticky. There was a lot of moaning. Even the ice cream that inevitably gets brought in by... someone, the school or parents, I don't know, doesn't really help.

My fourth class of the day is usually pretty hard to control. There's one girl in there who has ADHD, I'm sure of it, and trying to control her is an eternal struggle. Another kid, though the smartest in the class, just sleeps the whole time most days. Other kids vary between ultra shy, overbearing, and inattentive. The age range is a little awkward, too. Most of my classes are arranged by grade, with kids not varying by more than a year, for the most part, but this class, I think, ranges from grades 3-6. There's a big difference between 3rd and 6th graders.

The heat made everything worse, but there was this odd long moment of total, awesome bizarreness that I thought I'd share. This occurred, I think, when I was asking a question to the class, and everyone was pretty much ignoring me. Here's what the class looked like (wish I'd had my video camera):

The overbearing girl, Bunny, was up by the door, swinging it open and closed repeatedly to create a breeze. Sleepy head boy, Pam (he chose the name not knowing it's a girl's name. I haven't the heart to tell him), was asleep with his forehead on the edge of the desk. Next to him, another boy, John, had changed seats to be by the swinging door, and had collapsed his head into his arms on the desk. One of the shy girls, Lauren, was just staring off into space. That was the back row. In the front row, two of the oldest kids, Ruby and Hollis, were doodling and I think making googley eyes at each other, and to top it all off, Any (pronounced "Annie"), the ADHD girl, had turned her chair sideways and was sitting backwards in it, facing the wall, and rocking deeply back and forth, saying "This is very relaxing" over and over and over and over. The only way she can control herself from screaming and running around is by putting herself into a trance. That trance lasted about ten minutes, complete with mantra.

As I paused, superficially to let them think about my question, but really because I had just given up on trying to teach them, I surveyed the classroom and that sight. Then I just started laughing at the sheer lunacy that they had settled into. Ruby asked what I was laughing at, and I told her to look at the class. She got the joke. I think she said, "Oh, crazy people," laughed, and went back to her doodling. Oh, the joys of teaching.