Retaliation

You know, my Spanish I kids sat all year in a classroom that overlooked the P.E. class which met the same period. As the weather got warmer, we had to open the window. So as we sat and conjugated the past tense of Spanish verbs ending in "AR", the 8th graders played volleyball. And flag football. And basketball. It was tough. But at some point during the year, I suggested to my class that on the last week of school, we should take all that pent-up frustration and just release it....

in the form of water balloons.

We planned far in advance. We got the really good thin balloons. We devoted time to filling them. We told no one (except the principal, who I happened to be married to, who really had no choice but to say yes to me).

We pre-arranged it with the P.E. teacher. He watched for a white piece of paper to be taped to the window. At that point, he gathered his class for a little huddle under our window, under the guise of some type of pep talk. I stood in the window, with a Spanish book in hand, pretending to lecture. Then I screamed, "BOMBS AWAY!"

Oh, it was nice. It was worth every afternoon of listening to them!