Today at around 10:00 it began to snow furiously. One student’s hand flew up. “Mr. Jacobs, it’s snowing.” “I see,” I said, and let the excitement have free reign for a moment or two.
We were in the middle of standardized test review, a rather dry exercise that I’ve attempted to make exciting by offering a check mark for each instance of positive participation (students can lose marks, too, by talking out of turn). The check marks add up, and at the end of the week, each student in each class will receive one, two, or three tickets to enter into a drawing for one of several chances to choose a prize from my prize box. The box contains M’s family’s no-longer desired trinkets, folders and locker furnishings left behind by last year’s students, a few pieces of the candy that occasionally comes my way, a can of sliced pears (a random student–from another team, even–had given it to me after realizing he’d kept it in his locker too long and missed the Christmas food drive), coins from Latin America, and just about whatever else I feel like getting rid of. The funniest thing I gave away last week was chosen by a girl who’s into punk rock/death metal: a cassette tape of Russian folk music.
So anyway, in the test review activity, students rack up check marks rather quickly, and it’s a big deal. However, snow is also a big deal, even though I assured the students that no, we wouldn’t be let out early (although I was hoping…). “Okay,” I said, trying to bring the attention back to the task at hand. “If it’s still snowing at 10:30, everyone will get a free check mark.” That really brought out a whoop of delight and excitement, and we got back to work.
At 10:30, it looked to me as though the trees outside my window were letting a few snowflakes fall here and there, but the students were convinced that it was still snowing, and so they got the check marks. That made them happy.
