大象传媒

By Eithne H

In my experience as a teacher, I would say that you should never bring a lion to school. Please read this story as a warning. It was the start of the week and I especially hate the start of the week as my students always look a bit glum. I needed to cheer them up with something fantastic.

It was lunchtime when I came up with the exciting idea, and what an idea it was! I grabbed my coat from the staffroom and ran to my car. As I drove I was delayed by traffic lights (do you ever think there are too many traffic lights in the world? and looked at my watch, I only had twenty minutes! I got back to school just before the end of lunch and quickly prepared the classroom for the big surprise. I thought this could be excellent ('Teacher of the year' award in the bag) or a complete disaster (totally fired).As my class came in I told them to sit on the carpet because we would be having story time. I went into the cupboard at the back of the room and slowly pushed out a cage on wheels covered with a cloak. I pulled off the cloak to reveal a golden lion inside the cage. The children gasped, squealed and some jumped back. I assured everyone that it was safe, well to be fair I hadn't actually done anything like this before but the zoo keeper told me this was their best behaved lion.

I opened the cage door and the lion tumbled out onto the carpet. I placed our class reading book, the Lion the witch and the wardrobe, out in front of him. First he sat on it, then flipped it over, then scratched the front cover, then walked around it like it was prey he was about to pounce on. When he finally opened the book, the children formed a circle around him thinking that he would suddenly start reading, of course he didn't. The children took turns to read the book out loud and the lion was so interested in the story that he suddenly started to act the scenes out (only the ones with Aslan, of course). He was like a pantomime dame and was loving the attention from the children.

This was funny until it was home time and the children would not leave (which was unusual for a Monday) and the lion would not finish up his extravaganza. This got harder as more children from other classes joined to watch the show. You might think that sounds like great fun, but no it was more children for me to look after and school was finished! I finally got the lion locked up again by shining a torch on the cage, making it look like a spotlight on a stage. I had definitely cheered the children up but remember, never bring a lion to school or you will never get home on time!