Sunday, February 08, 2009

Is your person missing any teeth?

I love my first grade class. They make me laugh, even when they’re a little loud or a little bizarre. They’re wonderful. But right now I have a bit of a problem. A Secret Whistler. Now, I have a Whistler, who is a bit (lot) disruptive and wanders around from time to time. He sometimes whistles…not a particular tune, but just for the noise. It’s annoying, to say the least, but usually it’s easy to contain.
When my class is being loud, one of the super fun things we do is put our heads down on our desks. They know that until they’re quiet, I will continue to sit at my desk and wait them out. At the start of last week, during one such time, we heard a whistle. I told A. to stop. It happened again. And again. The class, frustrated, told A. to “stooooop!” A. denied all involvement. So I watched. AND IT WASN’T HIM.
Which means I have a Secret Whistler. I watched my class, hoping to catch someone. No go. But it kept happening and the class kept blaming A. I feel badly for him! But more than that, I am losing my mind over this copycat.
I’m going to have to out-sneak my class. I WILL figure out who it is. It’ll be like Guess Who? but with first graders. I’m going to keep a class list handy and cross off students when I deduce that they are not the culprit. If things get worse, I may ask the music teacher to test them on whistling—see who has the ability.

Wish me luck.