Today in my field experience class, my teacher showed her students the 20 Questions game--the little electronic one that guesses what you're thinking. Mrs. M told them to huddle together and decide on a thing--it had to be a noun--and they would see if the game could guess it. The junior highers huddled and could not agree on anything. "Doctor, doctor!" "No, dog!" "Star!" I foresaw that they might need a little help deciding what to do.

"Have you seen this game before?" Mrs. M asked me. I told her yes, and she suggested I go over and help the kids. So I did.

"Star would be a good one," I said. I was thinking of stars in the sky. They were thinking of five-pointed star drawings. Nevertheless, my opinion overrode others'. I love the hero worship junior highers employ... They're so funny. :D

So star it was. And the guessing began. I helped out a little. The kids would say, "Yes" or "No" to the questions, the kids would all give diverse answers, and Mrs. M would give me a sideways look, like, "Are these kids right? Do they know what they're talking about?" And I'd give my nod or shake of the head. Eventually as the game went on, after each question was asked, the students would all swing their eyes over to me.

There were two times I remember when the kids were all in unison on their answers. One time was, "Does it shine?" A huge chorus of yeses welled up, all with a surprised tone like, "That's exactly what it does!" I nearly laughed out loud. Mrs. M could surely guess it by their answer that time. Whether the computer could or not...

The other time was when the question was, "Can you enjoy it?" The answer was a resounding "No"! That was the only time I wholeheartedly disagreed with them. "What? You can't enjoy it??" I asked, and the kids, abashed, said, "Oh... Well... Yes... Sometimes..." They're hilarious.

The computer guessed "Sun" at the end of the 20 questions. One kid blurted out, "No! Star!"

Half the kids hollered at him, and Mrs. M said, "You weren't supposed to tell yet!" I explained that the computer, if it got the answer wrong, got 5 extra questions to guess. We went through with the 5 questions anyway, and yes, the computer did get it this time.

But thinking back to that kid... "No! Star!" Too funny! :D

The kids were completely crazy today. My cooperating teacher said that they should be calmer this week, since Halloween is finally over and passed, but it wasn't the case today. They typed up their essays today. After 20 Questions, Mrs. M explained to them her rules for typing up their essays--Times New Roman, 12 point font, etc.--how to put their name in a header and double-spacing she set them loose. And boy, oh boy, did they run wild! There were three adults ready to help them and still I was answering three questions at once, if not three dozen. Every five seconds... "Miss! Miss, can you help me!"

It's kind of cute that they call everybody "Miss," though.

Anyway. I would also get the same question ten times. I thought to myself, It probably would have worked better to send the kids to the computers and run them through everything step by step rather than explaining it and then turning them loose. Something to keep in mind in the future when I'm in a similar situation.

My class is an ESL class. I think I've mentioned that. They have toooooons of trouble spelling. I didn't mind. That's an area I know quite well! :D It was fun to help them get things right. I just wish they hadn't all been screaming for my attention all at once. Phew! But still... "Miss" is very cute. :)

All right, enough of my rambling for today. I have loooooots of homework to do. :(

-Stephanie

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