Ron sits in the front row and raps. Sometimes it’s an audible mumble, but it’s often just a whisper.

Harvey likes to turn his desk into a drum set. He’ll beat, thump, scratch — he’ll get more sound out of a school desk than one would think possible.

Keeping them quiet is a recurring task. It’s not a constant battle, but I do have to ask them a few times a week to stop the disruption.

Working on poetry and teaching meter, I was having students gradually move from dryly reciting the poem (“Cat!”, from yesterday) to rapping it. The idea was to get them to create a rap and “a beat” and point out that it all depends on the pattern of stressed syllables in the poem. I asked Ron to rap; with a nervous laugh, he eventually begged off. When a student finally volunteered, I turned to Harvey to supply the beat. He too said he’d rather not.

Another ironic moment in the classroom.