I've been teaching this particular group of 10-yrs-old boys for almost half year. They are always very loud and rowdy in class. For the past few lessons, they often did this silly antics one after another - that's to cup their left hand under their right armpit and flapped hard to produce a loud pop sound. I called that their "armpit" jokes.
It was silly and they often had a (not a but many) good laugh out of it. I gave them several warnings to stop that in my lesson as they were very distracting and disrupting. But my chiding fell onto deaf ears.
Finally two weeks ago, I sternly issued my last warning. I told them whoever did that would have to hold onto an object under their armpits till the end of the lesson. It sounded funny to them initially but, my acting was good, I delivered my verbal threat with the "I-mean-it" look.
Moments later, I heard a pop behind me followed by several low "All..". I knew who did it. Without hesitation, I took out my sturdy personal hole-puncher and ordered him to hold it under his armpit till the class ended. There were some tension in the air. I held onto my stern-looking facial muscles. Everybody knew that boy had crossed the boundary I'd set earlier. Visibly embarrassed, he softly said he wouldn't do it again. And I let him off the hook after a long hard stare.
Their armpit jokes had ceased since then. Boys would always come out with some silly antics, we have to match them by being creative with something equally silly to deal with them. Come to think about it... that episode was really very funny :)
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