Bumblebert, an unassuming classroom micro-gnome, lived
inside a computer tower in room 124, Mrs. Porrenplop’s classroom. In fact, he had quite a nice little home
there. Bumblebert didn’t mind a little
dust, and he had a natural flair for making things from what was at hand. He had ingeniously fashioned a makeshift
rocking chair out of wadded up notebook paper and rubber bands. He had laboriously smoothed out discarded
tissues to create a soft, comfortable bed over which he spread copious candy
and gum wrappers as sheets. He shelved
his extensive collection of gnomish micro-books, alphabetized, in the grooves
of the motherboard. He had even built a
little fireplace, which vented its smoke out of the back of the tower, so that
he could curl up next to a fire in his rocker and read. The use of the fireplace prompted Mrs.
Porrenplop to make many a frantic call to the tech department, but fortunately,
nothing ever came of that.
Surely, Bumblebert had everything a micro-gnome could
ever want, and yet he wasn’t quite satisfied.
Something still seemed to be missing.
During the day, the sounds of the classroom were a
constant din within Bumblebert’s little computer home. He had gleaned that the students in the
classroom weren’t making as much progress as he would have hoped. More to the point, from the conversations he
heard from inside his tower, he could tell that they possessed negative and
defiant attitudes toward learning. Nothing was more important to a micro-gnome
than knowledge – especially if he or she was a classroom micro-gnome!
Bumblebert was nearly three thousand years old (he was
originally a papyrus micro-gnome), and as middle age began to set in, he was
starting to have just a little bit of an existential crisis. He stroked his beard and thought.
There were only a few weeks left until Christmas
vacation. To alleviate his own malaise,
Bumblebert made a conscious decision: he was going to give Mrs. Porrenplop and
her students a gift for Christmas this year!
That night, Bumblebert flitted about the classroom,
working his gnomish magic.
When Mrs. Porrenplop came into the classroom the next
morning, she found a sealed manila envelope with her name written on it. When she opened it, what she found inside
almost made her swoon.
And that wasn’t all.
On each student desk, there was a sealed note, with the name of the girl
or boy who sat there written in tiny, spindly script. Mrs. Porrenplop
tried to open a few, but they were magically sealed so that only the intended
recipient could open his or her own note.
While getting ready for the day, Mrs. Porenplop began to
notice other changes in her classroom. There
was a vibrantly colored poster prominently displayed at the front of the
classroom – it was for charting student behavior and, after five infractions, a
student would receive a “punishment,” which was indicated with a large skull
and crossbones symbol. Another poster
hung above the classroom computers. It
was for tracking computer usage; any student transgression on a computer,
including visiting non-educational sites, was tallied here. Her eyes also alighted upon similar
“Tardiness” and “Homework” posters. None
of these had been here when she left yesterday…
“What a strange janitor we must have at this school!”
she thought. (The janitor would be very
surprised when Mrs. Porrenplop gave him a lavishly expensive Christmas gift
this year.)
As students began to filter in that morning, they saw
the posters and started to fidget with new self-awareness of their own behavior.
Other surprises began to occur once class began.
As the students opened their notes, their generally
mischievous faces began to darken.
Bumblebert was conducting a bit of holiday blackmail, gently reminding
each student of his or her most horrible guarded secret. Each student’s secret was carefully chosen to
be the one that would be most mortifying if it were ever revealed publically to
his or her peers. The secrets varied
widely. Some were minor but
embarrassing, such as that a student stuffed her bra or still wet his bed. Others were terrible, dark, soul-crushing
secrets.
As student’s settled into their normal daily behaviors,
the posters magically began to fill themselves in each time a student
misbehaved, moving these naughty children closer to reaching the consequence
labeled “humiliation” when their secrets would be revealed.
As for Mrs. Porrenplop, she was trying very hard to be a
more effective teacher. Her envelope had
indicated that, unless her teaching and behavioral management skills improved,
her secrets would be exposed in the teacher’s lounge—and would include
pictures.
She was able to conduct a full lesson today without having
any major disruptions– how lovely to teach with no outbursts or things being
thrown!
Then it was time
to rotate students onto the computers for research. Previously, Mrs. Porrenplop had only
intermittently conducted such rotations; they seemed chaotic and made her
nervous. Today, she decided to give it a
try and see what would happen.
Since Mrs. Porrenplop had not had control of her
classroom all year, it had seemed pointless for her to stress procedures and
routines that her students would merely flagrantly flout. So, when it was time to move, students began
to wander around, talk loudly, and generally see what they could get away
with. But then a funny thing happened --
a path seemed to naturally form with a one-way flow of traffic. It was if the students’ legs stung with pain
if they went any other way. Bumblebert
had turned all the old bubblegum ground into the floor of the classroom into
plastique. With his help, it was if the
students had known how to conduct themselves all along.
When students went to the computers, they started to go
to other Internet sites, but then they stopped.
Bumblebert had rigged each computer so that it would send out a tiny,
imperceptible electric shock through the mouse whenever a student tried to
access Internet sites or games. The
students didn’t notice the shock – they just suddenly realized they only wanted
to use instructional software.
Despite how much better the class was today, by lunch
time, the first student had reached five infractions for disruptive
behavior. Bumblebert’s magical watchdog
poster system promptly made an example out of this young man. In large, glowing letters on the chalkboard,
the words appeared “Johnny’s left testicle is tiny and misshapen.” His shameful secret revealed, Johnny sat in
the corner crying and sucking his thumb for the rest of the day, which was
rather unbecoming for a fourteen year old boy.
After this milestone had been reached, a new category
appeared on the posters. For five
infractions, the punishment had been humiliation. Now, for seven infractions, the posters now
listed “annihilation” as the consequence.
This prompted a vocabulary mini-lesson that left her students looking
alarmed. Mrs. Porrenplop truly hoped
that it would not come to this; she was not sure how she would ever explain to
parents that their child had disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Fortunately, Johnny’s misery provided enough impetus for
the rest of her students to behave for the rest of the day. Word travelled quickly, so it was the same
with every class. By the end of the day,
Mrs. Porenplop had to admit that it had been a remarkably good day overall. And, thanks to the ever-present threat posed
by Bumblebert’s posters, there were many, many more good days that followed.
Sitting in his rocking chair, Bumblebert smiled to
himself. “Merry Christmas.” he
whispered.
Mrs. Porrenplop and
her students, save perhaps for Johnny, who inexplicably changed schools in
January, did indeed have a merry Christmas that year, as well as a good and
prosperous New Year.
And so room 124, held
hostage by a gnome with a bit of magic and blackmail, came to be a functional
classroom for the rest of the school year.
The students did not dare misbehave, and actually began to learn a few
things in the more orderly resulting environment. It turned out to be a wonderful, if unexpected,
present to Mrs. Porenplopp, and brought great peace to Bumblebert, who had
always been blessed with very sensitive hearing.
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