Request

I have been requested to tell the story of How Family Feud Went Oh, So Wrong. It’s probably a good thing I got a request, as I really didn’t have plans of writing this week, so this gives me an excuse to procrastinate studying a little more. ;)

Teaching grammar is about as boring as watching paint dry – and I’ve done both. Therefore, instead of lecturing about grammar for two hours, I told my students to read over the chapter in their book and PREPARE. They figured it was for a quiz. Good for (some of) them. They were happily surprised to discover that, instead of a quiz, we were going to play some version of Family Feud for five bonus points.

I split them up into two teams, and one member from each team would come up to the front of the room and slam on the desk when they knew the answer (Which, btw, I’ve discovered I need to do this in our journalism lab instead of a classroom with thin walls – I doubt my fellow educators appreciated the slamming noises nor the word bombs that were occasionally dropped when students got the answer wrong). The students, however, seemed to have a really great time, and I was thinking the day was a success, too.

I had 40 questions prepared, so, on Question 33, 34, something like that, I thought, let’s do something different (and we were running out of time). So instead of having one person come up from each team, the entire team had the opportunity to participate for the remaining questions. The first team member to raise his or her hand got to answer for the team.

So far, the game had been either a tie, or one team was one or two points behind the other one. It was a close game. However, when I started the “Lightning Round,” I quickly discovered who had studied…and who had not. Team 2, which had been behind a point, had one member who knew EVERYTHING. Kudos to that kid for having studied so well. He knew every question and only missed two because he hesitated too long. Therefore…well, his team won.

The majority of Team 1 whined as a losing team does – not too much but enough to know that they did care about winning. It wasn’t a big deal. Except to one student.

He grabbed his bags and stormed out of the classroom, while muttering (loudly) something about where I and the other team could “shove it” and how I had cheated by changing the rules halfway during the game.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I started laughing. I usually laugh at idiocy, and I was shocked by his reaction. It’s MY class, therefore my rules. I could have made the last question the winning question if I wanted. I’m the teacher. If you want to be the caller of Family Feud, go get your Ph.D. LOL.

At any rate, though, I suppose I do need to address the issue with him and with the class today. You know, say something about if we can’t all be adults, we can’t play kid games.

Oh, college students.