Oh, Pooh....

All teachers have their "thing". For some it's throwing erasers at unsuspecting, sleeping students during a dry lecture. For others it's letting students climb out of the second story window. Just to see if they can. I always believed my thing to be French. Or my wittiness. Or perhaps my plastic lawn gnome named Norm. Or my hand puppet named Grégoire. Or the game I call the Toilet Brush Game. (Yup. With real toilet brushes. Unused, thank-you-very-much. GROSS!) Nope. Today we entered a whole new whole world. Really.

It started innocently enough in college. I was a Disney fanatic. I loved Winnie the Pooh. When the Beanie Baby craze hit, Disney shot back with their answer: the Mini Bean Bag Plush. Or MBBP. I fell in love...thereby giving every friend, relative, and colleague the simplest gift solution. Pooh. I got lots, and lots, of Pooh. So much in fact, that even after selling several dozen years later, I still have about five boxes full of Pooh. (I even went and got myself a job with Disney to support this habit. Hello! Discounts....) After moving into a new apartment with fewer places to stash my Pooh, I decided to do the unthinkable. Okay. Unthinkable for 1999. I packed up my Pooh and took it to school. For the kids. To play with. Yup. That's right. I'm the only French teacher on the planet that not only allows, but encourages her students to play with her Pooh.

Which brings me back to today. Up until today, the lower level French classes had been using my Pooh to practice their adjective agreement, or to practice their clothing vocabulary. (My Pooh is very stylish.) They've been in awe of my Pooh collection, but have refrained from commenting too much. (I mean, I have Mexican Pooh, Scottish Pooh, Easter Bunny Pooh, and Santa Pooh...from twelve different countries!) I'm sure the thought that I'm completely insane has crossed their minds, but they've been too nice to say anything.

Today, as I was reviewing with the French IVs, I noticed that one of my students had Knight Pooh on his desk. I ignored this new development, as I had not yet implemented the use of Pooh with the IVs. But, you know, kids like things to cuddle with. And maybe he needed comfort in a time of need. He was, after all, about to take a quiz.... (P.S. This is the class which, earlier in the year, had two students dress up for animal day. One was a gorilla. One was a cow. We have photos of the gorilla milking the cow, thereby adding cream to his coffee. No lie. I nearly peed myself.)

Once all of the students had reviewed, taken the quiz, and returned to their desks, a small dispute broke out among them. And all of a sudden.... There was Pooh flying through the air! Pooh hit a student in the head. From there...it was a blur. Students were nailing their friends in the back of the head with Pooh, some were stepping on Pooh, others were trying to avoid being hit by Pooh. And we're talking all kinds of Pooh. Chicken Pooh, Dog Pooh, Chinese Pooh, Vet Pooh, Einstein Pooh (Yes, Disney really knew how to appeal to their younger market....) That's a lot of Pooh!

Then the jokes started. "Madame, Luc is throwing your Pooh around." Or, "Margot, leave Madame's Pooh alone. She doesn't like it when you touch it." Or my favorite, "Madame, I left a pile of Pooh on your desk." I had one student laugh so hard, he turned as red as the shirt on the Pooh I was holding. I was considering the benefits of the Heimlich Maneuver when the bell rang.

Saved by the bell? Maybe. But they'll be back. Tomorrow. I'm almost afraid to leave them with a substitute teacher ever again. Because the sub? Might get buried in my Pooh.