The Day of the Full Moon

I know it will be a full moon tonight. I know this not because I’m a regular on weatherchannel.com, nor because I have a calendar that marks the date of the moon’s full appearance. I do not have a sixth-sense regarding the weather or space, nor have I heard the words “full moon” uttered all day long. No. I only know it is a full moon tonight because I’m a teacher; a teacher to the cutest little kids on the face of the planet who, most of the time, are relatively well-behaved and a joy to work with on a daily basis. But I am also a teacher who has just had the most chaotic day in her entire career to date.

Besides my own somewhat erratic behavior (a subject I will not touch on in this post for fear of too much self-exposure), I noticed a distinct difference in the behavior of my students today. It was not, I might add, a difference of the pleasurable kind. If I told you that my kids were misbehaved today, it would be a colossal understatement. They were entirely and irrevocably out of control.

In one of my Howdy classes this morning (that’s the ridiculous name of my beginners class—a name I take absolutely no responsibility for), I had three students who decided it would be fun to not only stand on top of their desks, but to jump and dance like mad for the entertainment of their classmates. I’m sure these seven-year-old boys thought they were being incredibly funny, and I imagine they had visions in their little heads of becoming the coolest kids in class because of their daring behavior. I, on the other hand, was having visions of cracked skulls and possible paralysis from the waist down, so, naturally, I bellowed at them to get down off of their desks and to stay down before I called their mothers (which is a threat that is quickly becoming empty… my students are catching on to the fact that I don’t know enough Korean to actually have a tell-all conversation with their mothers). Much to my annoyance, the response I received from my students was an unyielding “No!” as they proceeded to dance a jig on their desktops. “Oh, no you didn’t,” I hissed under my breath as I marched over to their desks. I stood in front of the three offending students while glaring at them with the fiercest look I could muster, and said slowly and firmly (just to make sure they understood every word), “Sit down. Now.” I wish I could tell you that I appear to be a threatening human being when provoked, but apparently, such is not the case. One of the little criminals leaned over from his standing position on the desk until he was practically nose-to-nose with me and said (slowly and firmly, of course), “No, thank you.” The other two offenders resumed their jumping and screaming while the third one stood on his desk-turned-stage looking down at me, as if to say, “What are you going to do about it?”

After a few more fruitless words of persuasion, I found myself at a total loss. The three little terrors were ignoring my warnings and now the other students in the class decided to follow their dangerous example. The scene in my classroom was beginning to resemble that of a zoo, with little monkeys climbing on the desks, chairs, and—much to my horror—me. As I was contemplating my next move, I felt two little hands clutch my left ankle with a deadly grip. I looked down to see one of my favorite students (favorite because she is usually well behaved) sitting on the floor by my feet with her arms wrapped around my left leg, making it impossible for me to go anywhere. After a few minutes of persuading her to let go of me and trying to shake her off of my leg, I finally got loose and made a sprint for the door. I slammed it behind me and went bolting down the stairs to the front counter where the infamous Counter Teacher resides.

The Counter Teacher is a total mystery to me. I don’t know exactly what his job is at my school, but he doesn’t teach, and this is part of the reason I’m baffled by his title. I assume he is the go-to man for everything at the school, as I frequently see him in the school computer lab, tinkering with a computer after it’s been gummed up by a foreign teacher (such as myself) who can’t even read the start menu because everything on the computer is in Korean. I’ve also seen him coming out of the bathroom wearing rubber gloves, a dust mask, and a tube of caulking in hand, wearing a satisfied, “I’m the best fix-it-man ever” expression on his tan face. But most of the time I see him roaming the school hallways with a big, menacing wooden stick in hand, looking for misbehaving students to bop over the head and, for this reason, I find him to be quite useful on days like today. (Concerned reader, please note: I only use the Counter Teacher as a last resort.)

I made my way breathlessly to the front counter, frantically looked for the Counter Teacher, and started speaking at an alarming rate when I finally spotted him: “You have to come to my classroom right now! It’s total chaos! My students have formed a rebellion and I don’t know how to stop them!” The Counter Teacher looked at me with wide eyes and a totally perplexed expression on his face, and it was just then that I realized it: not only was I shrieking at the poor man, but I was shrieking at him in gibberish. That’s right, ladies and gents, you guessed it: He doesn’t speak English. I was in such a frenzy at this point, however, that I resorted to pulling on his shirt sleeve and motioning frantically for him to come with me upstairs to my classroom. He followed me up the stairs, appearing to be a little reluctant and maybe even slightly terrified, as I dashed up ahead of him. When we reached the second floor, I flung the door to my classroom open for the Counter Teacher’s judging eyes to behold the anarchy that was taking place at that very moment. The scene didn’t disappoint his need to beat someone over the head: There in front of him, in the small confines of my classroom, were screaming children running to and fro, there were crying little girls who got caught in the crossfire, there were bits of torn up paper flying through the air, and there were Korean profanities scrawled across the white board. (OK, so I don’t know Korean. I just assumed the messages on the board were profane.)

To make a very long story short (mainly because my fingers are cramping up from typing like a mad woman), nine of my twelve students received a whack over the head with the infamous wooden stick for being misbehaved (to put it mildly). I wish I could tell you they learned their lesson and they were behaved for the remainder of the class period, but I would be lying to make you believe that I’m an amazing teacher who has total control over her classroom. On the contrary: they resumed their chaotic behavior as soon as the Counter Teacher exited the room. After yelling to be heard until my voice started cracking, I finally resorted to my underdeveloped philosophy on teaching: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. We proceeded to play the wildest game of Simon Says I’ve ever played in my life, and now I’m left feeling exhausted and hopeful that the moon will not reveal itself in its entirety for a very, very long time.