Necessary Lessons

Today I was teaching a literacy lesson but I could barely focus because of the chorus of sniffing coming from my students. I know I've previously mentioned that I have the snottiest class on the planet, but today it was completely out of control. And I came to the realization that most of them didn't seem to actually know how to blow their noses. So, I set down my book, picked up a box of Kleenex, and began handing out tissues to each student.

I explained to them where snot goes when you keep sniffing instead of blowing your nose, which drew a resounding response of Ewww! Then I said, "I don't care if you already know how, today we are going to learn how to blow our noses. And then we're going to practice." They laughed like I was crazy, but then listened as I went through the process...first starting with just blowing air out of our mouths. Two minutes later, all my students were blowing their noses and I was skipping around the room cheering, "That's beautiful, Marcus!" "Music to my ears, Sara!" "Oh my goodness, can everyone listen to Julio? Great job!"

Our new class rule is that if you sniff, you have to do a 30-second demonstration on how to blow your nose. Maybe tomorrow we can try to tackle sentence construction once more.