Strategies for coping with children who are "acting out"

1. call the office and ask someone with a deep voice to recite the Ten Commandments over the school intercom.

2. Give everyone a library pass, then lock the door from the inside.

3. Organize a lesson around a demonstration that will touch on a common interest of all the students: a fight to the death between two pit bulls, for instance.

4. Take the class on a field trip to the Bermuda Triangle. Make sure you get off before the plane leaves.

5. Tell the students that if they stop screwing up, they may one day be eligible for parole.

6. Put up a sign that reads "Bedlam Asylum, 1783" and invite the principal in to view your historical tableau.

7. Try to get some of the virgos transferred to another section.

8. Pipe nitrous oxide in through the heating ducts.

9. Tell the class to pay attention while you explain the miracle cure for zits.

10. Hire as teacher's aides the three runners-up in the Mr. T. look-alike contest.

11. Apply for federal disaster relief.

12. See your travel agent.