The Quiet Kid Raised His Hand

We were reading the first few chapters of Lois Lowry's The Giver together, discussing the way the community's rules were similar or different from our own.  We were deep in discussion when, in the exact center of the classroom, one student who doesn't say much raised his hand.  Delighted, I quickly called on him.

"Miss E., I found a bomb under my chair," he said, holding it out to me.  I took it from him with perfect calmness before beginning to laugh.

Perhaps some context?  I have a cupboard full of games that students can play before or after school or during free time during the day.  By far the most popular of these games is Stratego.  I even had to buy a new game set this year because of its popularity.  The class period before, with most of my students gone to the Christmas basketball games, the few of us remaining were watching Christmas cartoons while a few of them played Stratego.  Apparently they didn't clean up after themselves very well, which led to my quiet student the next class period finding a "bomb" under his chair.

While we all had a good laugh, some of the more skittish individuals confessed they'd suffered from some momentary alarm when he had made his announcement.  I have to admit, after I chuckled and took the game piece from his outstretched hand, I felt some retroactive unease myself.  There are certain things no teacher ever expects to hear in a discussion.  There are others that she fears, especially with the seemingly ever more frequent school shootings.  "Miss E., I found a bomb under my chair" is not a sentence I thought would ever be spoken in my classroom.  It makes me think about what I would do if my student had been serious.



But it's just a game piece!  haha.  twitch.  chuckle... shudder.