Shotgun Lessons

Props are essential when teaching kids. It's a rare occasion when I walk into a kid's class empty handed. I’m either carrying a bunch of flash-cards, a dice or maybe a small board game. Recently, I added a new addition to these assorted goods - a shotgun - a toy shotgun to be more accurate. It's a small pump-action gun that shoots out a little suction padded dart which sticks to any flat surface that gets in its way.
I figured that the kids I teach would love this toy. With one class, I entered the room holding a carrier bag containing the gun. The kids, aged between eight or ten, then appeared intrigued as they tried to guess what was inside. I then looked smug as I withheld the information they desperately craved. I sat back in my chair, with my hands clasped over the bag acting as a lock against any little handed intruder.
I then asked a few introductory questions and they answered whilst their eyes were fixed on the plastic bag. I eventually revealed the gun inside the bag. At first they were terrified, but when I reassured them that it was a toy model, they relaxed and desperately tried to snatch it from my grasp. I refused to let their little mitts handle the toy gun until I explained the English language game that involved the use of the gun. It was foolish of the kids to think I'd bring the toy gun only for them to run around shooting the shit out of each other. There was a logical purpose for this toy.
The game involved me drawing a large dart-board on the white-board. I would then ask each student a question, and if they answered correctly they were allowed to shoot at the target. The kid with the most points at the end of the game wins.
It's amazing what a toy gun can do to the most docile of kids. The benign and laid-back children were tuned into excitable, frothing gremlins as soon as they had the gun in their hands.
I always gave the student who was in possession of the gun a stern warning not to shoot their classmates and preach general safety before providing them with the rubber dart. They nodded with innocent doe eyes, and like a belligerent chameleon, would begin shooting their fellow students in the ass as soon as they had the gun. I lost count the number of times I ran around the classroom whilst a kid was waving about the shotgun and shooting off rounds wildly, whilst making "hyuk hyuk" laughing sounds like an in-bred hick. I think I may have exposed many of them to violence with the use of this gun because when I tried to retrieve it off a particularly crazy, saliva-flecked kid, he grabbed onto the barrel of the shotgun with both hands and didn’t let go. It became apparent which kids had morphed into war-warmongering, gun-toting nutters and which kids kept their sanity because the latter tried to help me out by trying to retrieve the gun from a bawling gun-slinger whilst the violent kids will band together to protect him from anyone trying to end their abhorrent, reckless gun-firing fun.
The picture was one of bedlam and wouldn't have seemed out of place in a Sam Peckinpah movie.
The madness was ended by me grappling with the gun-holding kid and aiming the tip of the barrel at his groin area before firing at will. Momentarily shocked by my brazen act, the kid let go allowing me to grab the gun and put an end to the proceedings.
In future I think I'm going to give them boring worksheets to do.