On burping

As I've previously written, one of the reasons I love working in education is the freedom to be insane (within reason and legality) and the freedom to use insanity to get desired results.

This summer, I had six kids, four of whom were boys entering middle school. All awesome kids and all very Aspergery. They did what most boys entering middle school did, but then the Asperger's kicked in.

So all the kids would be sitting there working on something quietly and all of a sudden one of the boys would find it necessary to break the silence with the most epic belch of all time.

I glared. The kid would ask to be excused and be forgiven.

Several moments of silence.

Yet another epic belch.

I glared again. The kid would once again ask for forgiveness. But not before another boy would let his belch join the rising crescendo.

Exasperated, I'd ask why the heck they needed to spend a quarter of their summer burping as loudly as possible.

Oh, responded the Asperger's, because their stomach juices were spinning around and made the burps come up.

Well then.

So the next day, when the first belch broke the still morning air, I turned and faced the culprit and spoke both strongly and sternly.

"Kid, in this room, we have a burp quota. A quota means that you can only do something a certain number of times per day. In summer school, the burp quota is one. Because you just burped one time, you filled your burp quota and are not allowed to burp any more at school until tomorrow."

"Oh, OK, Miss Grace."

Another kid burped. I told him about the quota.

"Oh, OK, Miss Grace."

And from then on we all came to school, burped once, apologized once, and did not burp again the rest of the day. The end.