Jan 29, 2010

She shoots. She scores.

First game of trashketball happened with 2 out of 3 of my classes this past Tuesday. One class is a pain in the behind, so we did the test review for that class in true test mode (aka, quiet individual work time). Hey, if they're gonna be punk students, I'm gonna be a punk teacher back!

This ain't just any school in the Bronx.

Anyway, they looooved it! I can't believe I pulled this off in an English Language Arts classroom. So for all you non-math teachers, have valiant faith that this game will surely have students furiously thinking and working in order to beat your amazing score, no matter what class you teach.

However, I found that you actually have to be decent if you want to play class vs. teacher. In addition, more often than not, you may be accused of cheating if you're wearing high heels while playing this game. I had to take my heels off and switch into my flats, and then they accused me of cheating because I was wearing flats (?!).

Fortunately, with my 9-in-a-row 3-pointers, I have now been dubbed "Ms. Kobe" by my students. Seriously. It was unwarranted, but I secretly love it.

I also discovered that a few of my students who were born and raised in NYC are actually big fans of the Lakers. I asked them if they were band-wagoners (a term we learned during our persuasive writing unit), loving the team only after their 2008-2009 championship. Jose said, "No! I've loved them my whole life!" Makes me shed a tear of happiness and pride.

1 comment:

Boolykhan said...

Sounds RAAAD. Way to bring it to ELA, ms. kobe... did you find that as a classroom game, it is still useful and builds community? I hope so.