A Scrap Over Scrabble

July 7, 2009


After an extended absence due to some internet-related ptoblems, I am back. Too much to relate in one sitting, so I'll tell my most recent bit of funny business with the students. The kids really love any kind of board or card game and I decided to introduce them to SCRABBLE as a vocabulary building tool. I ordered one game set as an experiment and it was so popular that I've since ordered six more. My biggest problem is kids arguing over who gets to play and who is the best player. With this much as background, here is my story:

I had sixteen fifth and sixth graders playing on four boards last Friday--two, two-man teams playing four on a board. I had them play as pairs so they could help each other. A SCRABBLE set has a total of 100 letter and blank wild card tiles including one Q and one Z. I am the final arbiter of word acceptability and scoring. An easy job, you say, for a former English major? Not with this bunch of young pirates and con artists! I was called to a table to adjudicate a word and noticed the board also had two words spelled with "Z" (Zoo and Zero) which would be fine if the words had been formed sharing the same "Z". They were, however, placed on different areas of the board using TWO "Z" tiles. (For those who remember a strange character from the TV show "Mork and Mindy", I say to you in the words of Exidor himself, " Blasphemey!") I stopped play and found a table missing its "Z". (Remember, "Z" is a ten point letter--not a lousy one-point "S". ) I won't go into the object lesson we had about cheating and my Korean co-teacher gave the entire room a tongue-lashing about disgrace and dishonor. A little heavy-handed I thought, but this is Asia and when one member of your group screws up, EVERYONE suffers. It's also Asia, because the theme of the lecture was (I sensed) LESS ABOUT THE SHAME OF CHEATING AND MORE ABOUT THE STUPIDITY OF GETTING CAUGHT!

Gotta love 'em! Everything worked out fine (I think). More another time.

Bill
(Your Asian morals enforcer)