Monkeys Emasculated

Showed up at the Gymnasium today, all fresh and ready to teach my worst monkey-class, the 4th form. Just as I walked in, Andrea said "Ah! There you are. I just left you a voicemail. I have to leave right now. You'll be on your own for the 4th and 7th forms." To this I replied, "Um, I brought some comic books.... should be no problem..." "If they get too noisy, there's another professor next door or threatening to send them to the Direktor should do quite nicely." Right. Luckily I still had an hour to drink some coffee and collect my courage. The 4th form is notoriously difficult to control, even though Andrea is always there sitting in the back and helping me scold them. My plan for the day involved lots of Calvin & Hobbes, but I began by explaining to them very clearly that I would be VERY angry if I had to seek the help of another teacher to control them.I had some overheads of some of the best cartoons to demonstrate and explain the premise of the whole thing, and I got some volunteers to read out loud the parts of Calvin, Hobbes, the mother and father, Susie, etc. After that, I split them into about 5 groups and gave them each a book. I told them to find a comic strip they all really liked, and then describe it. First, the setting & surroundings, then the characters, then the plot. Also, I had them write why they chose this specific comic. Of course, group work is always a bit noisy, and that's fine as long as they stay on task. So I wandered around the room asking them questions and explaining vocabularly and helping with sentence structure, etc. But, once it was time for the groups to present their little summary to the rest of the class- they didn't want to get quiet again. I raised my voice. Everyone got dead silent except for one girl. I walked up to her and yelled "EXCUSE ME!!!! IS THIS LESSON INTERRUPTING YOUR CHATTING???"

They all got serious after that.

I reigned the classroom.

It felt good.