Classroom Karma

One of the first conversations I have with students in the fall is about classroom karma. I explain to the kidlets that, if they put good things out into our classroom universe, the classroom universe will reward them. But, if they make poor choices and send bad vibes into our classroom universe, the consequences will not be pleasant.

After years of explaining and pointing our examples of classroom karma, you would think that I would be wise enough to avoid making the kind of classroom decisions that would earn me a swift karma kick in the backside. But you would be wrong.

 A little background: Every now and then, a random summer school class will invade my classroom where they touch my stuff, use all my printer ink, touch my stuff, poke holes in the paper covering my bookshelves, touch my stuff, leave candy wrappers in weird places, and touch my stuff.

Summer school classes in my classroom  also make it impossible to work in said classroom during the day, which means I have to go in during the evening when nobody else is around which is a problem for two main reasons: 1) I am pretty sure I will accidentally set off the alarm, causing a full scale roll out by all four of the town police people and 2) the school is haunted and very scary in the dark.

So, in an effort to discourage any summer school classes from taking up residency in my classroom and touching my stuff, I filled it full of boxes of books borrowed from the lovely and talented Valerie. 

But that little act of territorial passive-aggressiveness didn't earn me a spot on the universe's naughty list. Nope. THAT happened when I went back to the school at 7:30 am the next week, before the summer teacher's arrived and became a bit less passive and a tad more aggressive about protecting my space. I spread books around the room, locked up my good pencil sharpener, and moved the  projector remote to the very back of my very bottom desk drawer. Then I sat at my desk, swimming noodles close at hand, ready to fend off any would-be-room-usurpers.

I knew I was being a brat, but I didn't care. But the universe apparently did. A lot.

I had been so dead-set on defending my territory that, when I had opened the back door of my classroom that morning, I had failed to notice that a giant swarm of giant mosquitoes had taken up residence in the grass right outside. When I had come into the classroom, so had they. And while I had been busy making my classroom inhospitable to people, I was apparently being a very hospitable host/buffet for the mosquitoes.

So the result of my selfish morning excursion was a karma-tastic collection of super-sized mosquito bites. And now, instead of a room full of summer school folks keeping me from getting a head start on next year, I have been evicted by a room full of the universe's hungry little little enforcers.

I wonder if they are touching my stuff?