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Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Ridiculous Recess--OR--My First Contest!

Does this look fun to you?
I've been a school teacher for ten years now. TEN YEARS of grueling lesson plans, working my fingers to the bone to make learning fun and exciting for every child. At the end of each year I have my students fill out a little questionaire. One of the questions says, "What was your favorite part of fifth grade?" Can you guess what the answer is 99.9% of the time? That's right--RECESS--the one part of school I have nothing to do with.
I honestly don't get this. Maybe it's just me, but everything bad happens at recess. Think about it. When you had a fight with your friends, where did it usually start? That's right, recess. If you ever broke your arm, had to get stitches, or got in a fist fight, it most likely happened when? At recess. The school bully beating you to a pulp? You get the idea.
A couple of years ago, my students were playing tag on the playground equipment (this was actually banned from the school, but I pretended I didn't know they were doing it). Sure enough, about ten minutes in, a group of kids comes running over.

"Mrs. J, Mrs. J, Erin's hurt." I run over as fast as I can (which for me, is a slow jog) and Erin is laying in the wood chips, hand over his forehead.
"What's up?" I ask. (Cause, you know, I'm sensitive like that.)
"I got hurt."
"Really? Huh, let me see."
Erin, pulls his hand away to reveal the largest goose egg I've ever seen. I suddenly understood how, when cartoon people get hit over the head, they get this lump that rises six inches off their head. That is exactly what this looked liked.
"Okay," I try to act casual. "So that's a large lump." (We were working on alliteration in writing that day. See what a great teacher I am to work it into the conversation. One of the students pointed it out to me later.)
"Yeah," he agrees. "I can feel it."
"What do you say we go to the office and call your mom." I can't stop staring. "That thing is huge."
"Yeah," he says again. "I can feel it."
So I take Erin to the office, he calls his mom, gets in trouble because he wasn't supposed to be playing at recess that day because he was sick, but he conveniently forgot to give me the note, and got grounded for a week. Add the concussion (yes, he did have one) and the kid had a pretty rotten week. In his defense, he didn't rat-out our class for playing tag on the playground equipment, so I have to give him credit for that.
However, at the end of the school year that year, can you guess what Erin said what his favorite part of fifth grade? That's right--RECESS!

What does this have to do with the contest? EVERYTHING. My goal is to convince the students I work with that I am waaaaaaay cooler than recess. But I need your help.
I need you to submit the worst recess event that you were ever a part of.

THE RULES: (This is a writing contest, so great writing will be taken into account)

1) You have to become a follower of my blog. Yes, I know, I'm forcing you to be a 'Disciple of Me'.

2) Write your own blog entry on the 'Worst Recess Ever'. It can be funny. It can be horrifying. It can be sad. But above all else--it must prove that RECESS SUCKS! In your post, mention my contest and link it to my site.
*If you don't happen to have a blog, you can email me your entry at:
rightwomenwrite@gmail.com

3) Make a comment on this post, so we can link over to your site and laugh, cry, gasp right along with you.

That's it!
You are probably asking yourself, "SO WHAT DO I WIN?"
Well, certainly not a free ticket for fifteen extra minutes of recess (Believe it or not, children in school would sell their soul for one of those).
You will win...

A FIFTEEN DOLLAR GIFT CARD to either Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. Wow, that seemed almost anti-climatic, but I'm telling you...that is at least two paperbacks from your 'Need To Read' list or a Newly Released DVD starring Channing Tatum (which is priceless).

So spread the word...Facebook, Twitter, Blog...heck...shout it from your rooftop. I'm excited to hear the horrible things you come up with! Is it just me, or does this kid look like he's contemplating suicide off the playground equipment. STOP THE MADNESS!


BLOG ON!
*Contest will be open until Monday, May 10th @ midnight.

9 comments:

Elana Johnson said...

What a cool contest. I've been teaching for 10 years too. We're like twins in different skin!!

I'll put my pen to use later tonight.

Kristina P. said...

I wish I had something to sumit!

NaTahsha Ford said...

Check out my post! You should pick me to win. My recess definitely sucked!

Jo Schaffer said...

Great! This was fun, Margie!
I put this on FB and Twitter and I posted an entry on my blog!

http://jostorm.blogspot.com/

Write Chick said...

Thanks Jo and Tahsha. Elana, I can't wait to see your horror story about recess. Teachers have a lot of them.

Kristina, I can't believe you don't have a crazy recess story. I would love to see your spin on recess. :-)

Aimee Kelly said...

Great contest idea! I don't have a blog but my son wanted to enter so I emailed you his story!

Strawberry Shortcake said...

Margie,

I will have to email my entry because it has foul language and I don't want it on my blog ;) It isn't so bad, but it is kind of a hilarious story. Hopefully I remember to get it in on time!

Nykreim said...

I found your blog, through my amazing cousin Jo. So I thought I would join your fun contest. Here is the link to my story on my blog:

http://kcnykreim.blogspot.com/2010/05/that-day-at-recess.html

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Okay, you're not giving me much time here (just got in last night) But in honor of your awesomeness, I would like to join in the fun. Great idea, by the way.

ROCK ON SISTA!