Middle School Classroom Management Tip: A Step by Step Guide to Shocking/Scaring Your Class into Mostly Listening to You from Now on, Courtesy of the Merlin Fandom
Step 1: Accidentally find this video.
Step 2: Watch it obsessively until you figure out how Bradley James does the sword flip (around the 4 minute mark).
Step 3: Find the plastic sword you bought at Target during Halloween season a few years before. Practice in your living room until you can also do the sword flip.
Step 4: Completely forget about all of this for 10 years.
Step 5: Become a middle school teacher. Encounter a difficult class who won't work for you unless they like you. This especially works if it's a class full of rowdy boys and you've spent most of the year wearing floral dresses and talking about poetry.
Step 6: Find your plastic sword while cleaning out old boxes. Suddenly remember the sword flip. Wonder if you can still do it.
Step 7: You can.
Step 8: Wonder if it works with yardsticks.
Step 9: It does.
Step 10: Wait for a day when your class is extra obnoxious. Silently walk across the room to get a yardstick. Bring it to the front of the room and place the yardstick across your foot. Make a bet with the class: if you can pick up the yardstick without bending down to get it, they have to work quietly for the rest of the period. If you fail, they can have free time for the rest of the period.
Step 11: They're intrigued. They're quiet. It's a miracle.
Step 12: Flip up the yardstick with your foot and catch it like a badass. Twirl it for good measure. Enjoy the absolute pandemonium that follows.
Step 13: Silently return the yardstick to the back of the room. Remind the class that they are bound by honor to abide by their word. Enjoy 10 minutes of silent work time.
Bonus: The class thinks you're cool now. They're still loud and difficult, but they mostly rein it in when you tell them to knock it off. You push it and try to get them into medieval poetry. It doesn't work. You'll try again in a few weeks.
The moral: No knowledge is useless, and Bradley James is awesome.
