Oh Master Minds...

As a teacher at our school, we are contractually obligated to offer an after school activity. You have two options as a teacher: Monday-Wednesday-Friday sport related activity or Tuesday-Thursday more curricular related activity. Seeing as how I have no athletic ability and have never coached a thing in my life, I clearly opt for the Tuesday-Thursday option every term.

For the past two terms now, I have offered the activity called Master Minds. In the beginning I started out very strong offering cool activities every day that got the kids engaged. We did math problems and group solving with hands-on activities. But as time has progressed, my flock has strayed a bit. I really can't blame it on the sheep either, the shepherd has gotten a little lazy admittedly. I can't help it, planning a good activity for them is like prepping for another class every Tuesday and Thursday and lately I've been simply running out of time to do so.

I truly enjoy the caliber of our students in times like these though. I have nothing planned for 14 students to do for 55 minutes. A normal (i.e. average American) classroom of students who have been cooped up all day long would be tearing the place apart. As I scan the room, I see 5 boys in the corner playing Halo on their computers, one boy playing Tetris online, two boys playing chess, and three kids working on sudoko puzzles I randomly gave them. It is no louder in here than it is during a normal class period. I love our tame children!