Attitude Adjustment

I watched our school nurse try, unsuccessfully, for twenty minutes to try and capture the attention of my class. She certainly showed up with the goods: each student received their own "Too Good For Drugs" activity book, and she had a bushel of colorful pencils to hand out for prizes to those who distinguished themselves. Perhaps I should be more clear about her expectations. She only hoped to be able to speak to them without being interrupted. Alas, this is not a skill that my class practices on a regular basis. They are part of the hyper-media generation after all, and a coloring book that doesn't explode or turn into a robot had better jump off the desk and start doing the old soft-shoe to capture the wicked short attention span of the kids in my room.
So after those twenty minutes, I decided that it was time to pull the lever and move on. "Thank you, Nurse Battle for your time, but I don't think my class is ready for your presentation today," I said and then turned back to my students, "Take out your math journals."
"Nooooooo!" they howled as I went to the board and began writing the lesson objective. More grunts and whines and moans. I kept writing. When I finished and turned around, I saw that there were a few who had yet to get their journals out, while others were making a grand show of just how unhappy they were to be writing their math lesson objective instead of tormenting Nurse Battle. There was a time when a wave of guilt would sweep over me and I would cave in to their sad little faces and try to give them some other way out, but no more. Not with this group. I have this group to thank for helping me find my inner Hitler.
This class has been a scary reminder of the creepy sense of entitlement that most kids find at some point, but I find that fourth graders have in spades. They have little or no understanding of how their behavior connects to their consequences. Or perhaps more to the point, they don't give the appearance of that understanding. Simple actions such as "if you stop talking, we can go to lunch" cause their brains to lock up, creating only paradox after paradox. "We're always late to lunch! Shut up! Why don't you shut up? See? We're always late to lunch!" The world is, sadly, against them.
Or so it would seem. I have told them that if they improve their behavior, I will allow them to compete in the kickball tournament on Friday. Many of my students have already begun their chants of doom. "But Mister Caven, if we don't play, we forfeit, and if we forfeit, we lose!" And with a flash, they turned on me, "If we lose, then you lose too. That makes you a loser." For the briefest moment, I felt the need to respond, and then I let it go. I may not end up with the best kickball team, but I will have the best-behaved.