Lesson #2 - Don't play with batteries.

One afternoon, while teaching my Year 8 class a rather successful lesson that involved creating a picture of your favourite scene from Hamlet (Hamlet's stabbing of Polonius was the favourite, for the record), I suddenly overheard some giggling to my left. (I'm right handed by the way, so I'm not sure why I drew myself writing on the board with my left hand, other than basic aesthetics).

A child's laughter, contrary to popular opinion, is not one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.  It is in fact a warning system, a siren to let adults know that something very silly, and possibly very dangerous is taking place within their vicinity.  I turn around immediately and witness this:

It takes me a few seconds to work out what is going on, my immediate concern in the scissors, which I confiscate, and then I realise that the subject of the child's aggression is in fact the battery from a mobile phone.  The kind of battery that is covered in warnings about cutting it, heating it, burning it, destroying it in any way shape or form.  And here Dennis is, jabbing scissors into it.  I get a bit panicked...

Dennis is a little concerned at the severity of my reaction, quickly stops giggling (and speaking, and keeping his pants dry) and dropped the battery into the garbage bin by the board before scurrying off to wash his hands.  The class sits in silence until he returns, whereupon a few muffled chuckled are made at his expense (poor Dennis is almost in tears after my claim that he's had a near death experience), before the class settles back to work.

I decide that it's time to give up on the nice passive drawing activity and take some notes on the role of Horatio in the play.

The kids are chattering at a low level, but I'm certain that I overhear a small 'popping' sound.  I look around, and assume that one of the kids has gum, but after a quick scout, I can't see the culprit.  I shrug my shoulders internally, and recommence writing on the board.  Until I hear it again...

It's louder this time, and it scares the wiggins out of myself and Year 8.  None of us can tell where it's come from, and begin to make up lies about what in fact it actually is.

The noise stops at two pops, and we don't hear it again.  Once again, I recommence my enlightening study of Horatio, most infallible character ever...and I start sniffling, not because of the emotion of that final speech (though let me tell you, I've been there), but instead because something is tingling my olfactory sense.

My initial thought was 'that's weird', on account of you don't typically see smoke coming out of a garbage bin.  My second thought was to get the students outside, because as the old adage says, where there's smoke, there's fire.  I turn my attention to the class and am about to open my mouth when...
 

Thinking quickly for once, I grab my jacket from the desk and throw it over the bin, while evacuating the students out the door and down the stairs to the fresh air.  I call someone else in to babysit and return to the scene of the OMGFIRE!

When I get there, my jacket has done the job (and managed to escape unscathed - go natural wool!).  The fire has halted, though it has managed to melt through almost everything in the bin, and when I lift the bin to take it outside, it has a small rectangular shape that has melted through the base.

True Story.