The Smartest Elementary Kids Around

During my time as an elementary school student here in Minnesota, I first started to develop my likeliness for one school subject over another. Quietly I would sit in class waiting for recess and gym while math and history seemed to drag on forever. Once it got to the point where doodling and adding 1+1+1+1 on my calculator could not hold my attention anymore, I had to find a new way to distract myself. I cannot take credit for this idea but one day on the playground somebody came up with the ingenious idea to get sent to the hallway to avoid sitting through our lecture. I actually remember the year we thought of the plan, all of the necessary pieces fit on paper; my teacher was nice, my friends had class right across the hall and we had math at the same times every day. We used getting sent to the hall, which was supposed to be our punishment, as a sense of positive reinforcement. We got to see our friends instead of sitting through a boring math class. Even though it only took a few days for our teachers to see the pattern, they were the most fun math classes of my life! We used what was supposed to be our teacher's form of punishment to encourage our behavior. Overall, we did end up getting punished for what we did and this time it worked. I can only speak for myself when I say this, but I haven't tried to pull that stunt again.