In order to keep my pupils on their toes, I decided to introduce a prize to be won in a quiz every Friday. Whatever is learnt from Monday to Thursday is assessed in the form of a quiz on Friday. Any pupil that answers any question in the quiz is rewarded with a pack of biscuits. They love the quiz and look up to it every week. At some points, the headteacher witnessed the quiz and she was impressed. She went ahead to instruct other teachers to adopt something similar.
There was a particular Friday that we embarked on the quiz as usual. Any child that answers any question has his name written down and the biscuits would be shared at the end of the quiz to the winners. Others that couldn't attempt any question correctly are compensated with sweets. As expected, the questions are always the type that involves critical thinking that are very deserving of the prizes. We started on that particular day and at the end of it, we had four winners - one won twice making the number of prizes to be given out to be five. I distributed the prizes and we were set to round up the program when I checked the time and realized that we had about ten minutes left.
I decided to give a "tough" question that I promised to give any pupil that provides a solution to it five of the biscuits. As their teacher, I wasn't expecting anyone to get the solution correctly because the topic hadn't been taught to that level before that time.
The whole class turned their attention to me and one of the leading pupils in class, David, asked me again if I was serious about the five biscuits prize which I answered in affirmative.
Uncle, this is an agreement ooo ...
I assured David that it was an agreement.
Another girl, looking at my empty tabletop, asked for the biscuits that I would give to the winner.
Don't worry about that. I will give whoever wins the prize before closing of school activities today.
I was so confident that none of them would be able to answer the question and there wouldn't be any reason to give anyone a prize.
I went to the board and put down the question. It was a Mathematics question that requires some level of calculation before getting the solution.
They swung into action and different answers were presented to me which were incorrect. I waited for everyone to submit after giving them adequate time to provide a solution to the question. David's solution was the last that I marked and to my surprise, he solved it correctly. I was amazed. I immediately called him and gave him a marker to solve what he had in his book on the board. He confidently solved the question on the board with enough explanation to other pupils to understand.
We celebrated such a level of brilliance as a whole class. At that point, it dawned on me that I was parting away with five biscuits to David as earlier agreed with the whole class. I told the pupils that I was going to redeem the prize to David on the following Monday but the whole class chorused "No Uncle" as they stood in solidarity with David to demand for the prize. I had no option than to keep to my own side of the agreement.
Few weeks earlier I was in the class when their Civic Education teacher was teaching them the good act of keeping to agreement. I then thought of it as a good opportunity to live what we preach as teachers. They learn a lot from the actions of teachers around them and I knew this very well.
I wasn't with money and I had to go get the biscuits from the provisions store in the school premises. I explained to the storekeeper and promised to give him the money the following Monday.
I brought the biscuits for David and all the pupils hailed and celebrated him.
As much as I know, to some extent, the intellectual capacity of my pupils, I learnt not to underrate the kids. I also learned to be ready to implement my part of an agreement no matter how low the possibility of the other party actualizing his part is.
Life with this kids is fun.
