Day -20: Game Over

Today Juan came into my room at lunch, hysterical. "I'm scared, I'm scared," he kept blubbering through tears. "I'm afraid I'm gonna get suspended."

As the story came out, I discovered he had taught some people the Bloody Mary game, which I don't really understand but have some vague recollection of from elementary school. In Juan's version, it basically involves one student closing his eyes while the other touches the first's hands and, through some sort of voodoo power of suggestion, makes the first person feel an alleged spirit touching his hands. This game had spread like wildfire and was freaking out the entire fourth and fifth grade classes. Juan thought that he was going to be called to account by the principal. I'm not sure exactly what he thought the suspend-able infraction in teaching students the Bloody Mary game was, but he was convinced it was seriously wrong. I let him sit in my classroom until he calmed down a little. I promised that after students came back from lunch and English Language Development, we would have a little talk and we could put the game and its spooky powers to rest.

After lunch was over and I went to go pick up my class, Juan was in tears again. In a brief and interrupted exchange, he explained that he was still worried about getting suspended. When I explained that I really didn't think that he should worry about this, he told me that he had already gotten in trouble, that the principal had made him "sit on the bench" for the end of recess (our school's punishment for recess rule-breaking). The rest of my teaching day was such that I never got to fully understand what this meant. My best guess is that Juan probably went up the prinicpal and confessed that he had taught students a game that was freaking everyone out. I bet the principal, trying to dispatch with problems as quickly as possible, simply said, "Mmmm, that was a bad choice. Go sit on the bench for the rest of recess," without even thinking about it. A rule-breaker presents himself and gets punished. Why would the punisher do anything different? I'm really not blaming the principal. I like him, for the most part. I didn't have time to hear Juan out either.

Things calmed down a little, but Juan really wanted to make sure I talked to the class about not playing the game anymore, that it wasn't real, etc. I said this, and in the course of my little lecture said, "The game is over."

"Game over!" Wilfredo, an avid video game player called out.

I took the analogy and tried to run with it. "Yep, game over," I repeated. "You've gotten the high score, you gone to the highest level, and it's just not fun anymore." I tried to make my best video game sound effects, which, not being a video game player, were not very good. "Game ... over," I repeated with attempted sound effects this time.

It did at least get students' attention, if not put the game to rest permanently. And Juan had no more tears for the day.

How do Bloody Mary and Punch-Buggy and not stepping on cracks so as not to break your mother's back spread across generations and geographical areas and socioeconomic classes and ethnic groups? Nintendo and Punch-Buggy. My students have those things in common with all fourth graders in America. One is propagated via marketing, the other through what exactly?