Surprising Students

I spent a lot of last week at the hospital going through the hassle of trying to see a doctor to get medicine. While trying to do this, my class was stuck with a substitute who they severely disliked. I realized this as many of my students would start appearing next to me in the hospital waiting line after having “escaped” from class. Though as their teacher I can’t condone it, I did find it pretty funny.

Finally on Wednesday I had spent most of my day at the doctor’s while a substitute was supposed to be with my class, and locking the door at 2:30 when class got out. At 2:30 after my classroom should have been emptied and locked, two of my boys showed up at the hospital- with my lock! I sternly told them to go get everyone else out of the classroom and lock the door. Half an hour later, the showed up again- with the lock. Despite my anxiety of the chaos that could be happening in my classroom at the moment, I didn’t want to lose my place in line. When I finally finished at the doctor’s and was walking back to my classroom, an hour after school had ended, I realized the lock was STILL not on the door and I was seeing students in my classroom. I opened the door thinking I was going to walk into a mess, but instead I was rather surprised.

Almost all of my students were in my classroom, having stayed an hour late, yelling “surprise!”. They had written “Thank you Miss Liz!” all over the board, and had entirely cleaned the classroom. They had rearranged the tables and benches, had moved my desk, even gone through and organized my drawers (and ruining my entire organizational system in the process, but oh well), and borrowed a mop for the floor. I was even more impressed when I found out their substitute had never shown up, and they had spent the afternoon doing this on their own accord, when they could have been causing mayhem. Just another example of despite all the grief they may cause me, they really are great kids.