Tales from the Cafegymnatorium

I teach physical education at a kindergarten through 10th grade school here in Texas. My classes are pretty small as P.E. rosters go; thirty students, max. The tradeoff (or maybe the impetus) for having such small class sizes is a small gym space. Our "gym" also fuctions as the schools cafeteria and auditorium. A "cafegymnatorium," if you will. A consequence of my classroom doubling as the lunchroom, I have the assignment of lunch duty five days a week.

During lunch duty, I try to keep students from making a complete mess of themselves and the school. I also do food prep for young ones who can't open up the snacks packed in their Hannah Montana or Transformer lunchboxes (By the way young parents, don't ever buy "Gogurt." No student under twelve years old can open one of those tubes without a pair of scissors.) While walking around the lunchroom helping students peel bananas and unwrap lunchables, a kindergartener raised his hand to get my attention. I scurried over to his seat to help him out. When I arrived, the boy asked, "Coach Aho, can you open this for me?" Then he held up a plum. Suppressing a snicker, I explained to the boy it was a piece of fruit and he could just put it right into his face. He bit into it, then smiled and thanked me. Teachable moment? Check. - Evan