Hey, I've been in a firefight before! Well, I was in a fire. Actually, I was fired from a fry-cook opportunity.

I have a student who I refer to as my Herdman. From The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. He's new to the school, and I'm fairly certain he has a one-eyed cat at home.

Needless to say, we've had some issues adjusting to the new school year. For example, I had to tell him not to ask the other children to say "Sofa King" fast. (You try it and see what comes out of your mouth). Also, I had to explain to him that, while I understand that he's excited about recess, but you can't say "Dude! That sh!t is awesome!" in my classroom. It's simply not allowed. Call me a stick in the mud.

But today. We started a new behavior plan today. We're focusing on getting some work done, so the plan worked like a charm, as all new behavior plans do the first day. He did his work, he got his computer time reward. We all packed up and waited the few minutes until the magical dismissal bell rang. I called him over to my desk to remind him that if he did not stop using the F-word at lunch, there would be no computer time.

Then, I told him to go stand by his desk (as all the other kids do) and wait for the bell to ring.

What he heard was:
"Go meander out into the hallway. There, you will find a red lever encased in a large clear plastic box. The box says "lift" on it. Ignore the words "in case of fire" and merely lift the plastic box to see what happens."

That just made my day, friends. Made. My. Day.
I would love to tell you that I calmly went outside, explained to little Herdman that he couldn't do that, and then he said he'd never do it again, and that he was sorry.

But you know and I know that is NOT how it went down. I'm going to spare you the details of how it actually went down, but let's just say that he knows what my breath smelled like when I was explaining to him that he should not be lying to the principal about what happened. And then I walked away and left him in the hands of the principal. For his safety.