I finished my 2nd year teaching at the end of may and I can't say I miss school at all right now. 2nd year was much better than 1st year and I hope it only keeps getting better. I really liked the group of kids I had and it was sad to say goodbye. A week before school got out I had morning duty in the 8th grade hallway before school started and as I was watching the students come to school and hangout in the hallways I noticed they were a lot quieter than normal and were all whispering to each other. I did my best to inconspicuously listen in and find out what they were talking about but all i found out was that all the 8th graders received a mass text the night before. I didn't find out what the text said though while I was in the hallway but knew it couldn't be good. During homeroom, one of my students asked me, "Miss Holcombe is it true that every year on the last day of lunch the 8th graders have a massive food fight?" I said it absolutely wasn't true and he better make sure that didn't happen. That day was the last day for them to eat lunch at school. I am not usually one to catch on very quickly but I knew then that the mass text was to have a food fight the next day and to bring sticky food. Sure enough, the same student then said, "yeah well I got this text from about 10 different people all saying the same thing to have a food fight today." Way to keep it a secret 8th graders. Don't apply for any kind of undercover job anytime soon.
Of course I instantly get on my computer and email my principal and the other 8th grade teachers to give them a heads up and find out if we should do anything else to keep this from happening. My principal wrote back that a parent had told him the same thing and that we should tell our classes right away that everyone knows about the plan for the fight and that no one better even think about going through with it. So I tell my 1st period class exactly that. The first thing out of their mouths, "how did yall know?!?" um.....try how did we not know? The next thing out of their mouths, "what will happen to us if we do it anyway? will we not be allowed to come back next year" says the kid who doesn't want to be at the school and is hoping he doesn't have to get kicked out.
Lunchtime rolls around and all the kids are on alert. My principal came to lunch that day and stayed with us the whole time just watching the students. All of the students are quieter than normal and keep looking at the teachers and our principal. A couple of kids keep moving from table to table whispering things and we can tell they are trying to figure out if they should go through with it or not. One boy who is smaller and more devious than all the rest is holding a pudding snack pack the whole lunch and looking at it and you can tell he is just dying to throw it on someone but yet he also would like to just eat it too. My principal told the teachers that the first kid to throw anything for us to just get them and yell real loud that they are going to the head of the school. It comes to the end of lunch and time to clean up before we head out to lunch recess. I start bringing trash cans to each of the tables and tell the kids to throw away all their trash. Then, out of the corner of my eye I see the student with the snack pack dart to another student and before I can do anything the pudding has been dumped all over another student. I immediately do the only thing I can think of and that is grab the student who threw the pudding by the arm and yank him with me while at the same time yelling at all the rest of the students to "sit down right now!"
I drag the student out of the gym doors toward the main office of the school and yell at him to sit on the floor by the door and to not move an inch. It is right at this time too that a class of kindergartners is walking by and all their eyes are huge in terror. I walk back into where the 8th graders are eating lunch and that was the end of the fight.
I felt like I had real power for a few minutes. The best part was later hearing all the 8th graders tell everyone else all the things they had planned to do as if they were really cool for having a plan but then completely deflating them by reminding them that they didn't actually do any of the things they had planned so they really weren't that cool.
Maybe next year's 8th graders will go through with the "annual food fight"
