Let the games begin

March is a little wacky where I work.

Some would even say it's mad.

It's March Madness, in fact.

But not just because of the NCAA Basketball Championship Tournament.

As of right now, we have three weeks left until Spring Break at the high school. So all sorts of adverse behaviors are popping up out of seemingly well-behaved children and quieter-than-a-church mouse classes.

No one - including the teachers - really wants to be here.

After all, we completed state standardized testing last week; we're almost finished with our projects for the third quarter, and we're all so gosh-darn tired, it isn't funny.

It's safe to say - what with the testing relief and the projects and the exhaustion - my students and I alike are getting a little punchy. A little giddy, if you all.

A little free-for-all nuts, perhaps.

Things are not normal in Education Wonderland by any stretch of the imagination.

So, in order to keep the kiddos engaged, my fellow teachers and I have taken to pulling little pranks on each other, as well as the students, for the next few weeks.

Keeps things interesting, you see. And it's all in the spirit of good old March Madness.

I, for instance, used a picture of our P.E. teacher when showing my journalism students unethical photo manipulations in Adobe Photoshop.

And I may or may not have turned her various shades of green, painted neon pink high-heels on her feet, and rendered her completely bald. All to make an educational point, of course.

Another co-worker taught his entire English class in a sombrero - with no prior explanation given - and every time one of the students so much as glanced at him funnily, he shouted out, "What is it? Can you not just listen and process what I'm saying, please? Pay attention to the material!"

Not a student has dared to mention his headgear since.

Unfortunately, though, the pranks and general silliness don't end there.

Because the kids seem to have wised up to our merry March-Madness ways. And they're fighting back.

For instance, just last week, I went ahead and learned all the middle names of all of my students, so if one so much as even fluttered an eyelash over the line, I could bellow the old, "Michael Anthony, what exactly do you think you're doing?"

And everyone knows that when adults use your middle name, they mean business.

I was freaking my kids out right and left.

"Lauren Michelle, sit down!"

"Catherine Ann, you and I both know that's not appropriate!"

"Crystal Marie, stop that right now!"

The kids were wigging out; I was dying laughing under my teacher poker face.

Until finally, one student figured it out and asked, "Um, did you learn all our middle names or something?"

I smiled smugly and walked away.

Mrs. C: 1. Students: 0.

The gauntlet had been thrown.

Which brings us to yesterday morning, when I waltzed into my classroom, flipped on the lights, and found myself staring directly at a blackboard full of pictures of...

Me.

A wall of me.

A wall full of pictures, stuck all around the room, of yours truly.

Yours truly, it has to be said, doing something so ghastly that it almost hurts me physically to say it.

Pictures of yours truly...bowling.

The students had managed to drag up photos of last summer's yearbook camp, where I guardedly participated in a sport I never consider anything but a form of torture: Recreational bowling.

Bowling - a sport that is better suited for almost anyone but me, as I'm known to still require bumpers when I play.

So, yes, it was humiliating, having the pictures of me bowling (gasp!) stuck everywhere. All over my wall-sized blackboard. Around it. Tacked here. Taped there. Pictures, pictures everywhere.

All of me - sigh - bowling.

And bowling, nonetheless, in unfortunate khaki shorts and red bowling shoes. With ankle socks.

Ick.

But I'm not just talking about pictures of me posing in that unfortunate get-up with that bowling ball cocked over my shoulder.

I'm talking bent-over, full-lunge, swinging-arm, tongue-out, look-of-intense-concentration, circles-under-eyes, thighs-bursting-in-my-teacher-appropriate-shorts, under-pronating-in-my-bowling-shoes, sweating, hair-frizzing, cheeks-puffed-out bowling.

Everywhere. All over my very own classroom.

I'd been attacked.

And the carnage was a sight.

One ugly, ugly sight.

A sight I thought I had sworn my students to secrecy over, in fact. After all, on our way home from Yearbook Camp last summer, I basically threatened to make them repeat a grade if they so much as posted one picture of my ugly-bowling anywhere. They had agreed. And they had giggled.

They giggled the same giggle I heard coming from behind me as I stood in my classroom door yesterday, staring at the unfortunate paper montage of one unfortunate moment in my life.

So I turned to find my yearbook students, standing behind me, laughing.

Or, rather, stifling their laughter. And looking at me, glancing at each other, and trying to keep their faces from giving away their secret.

Until, finally, one got brave enough to just say it:

"Who posted the pictures up there of you at camp, Mrs. C?"

I didn't respond immediately. I was waiting for the right words to come.

I gave them all the Teacher Stink Eye and debated calling them by their full names, middle included.

Until, finally, it hit me.

I slapped on my most innocent and serious of teacher faces and spoke:

"Well, guys, I don't know. But whomever it was better know that, now, it's on. This. Means. War."

I then silently retreated to my adjacent office for two minutes.

By the time I got back, the pictures were gone.

And left on my blackboard, in their place, was a note:

"Happy March Madness, Mrs. C!"

***

Happy Tuesday everyone!