homeosapphic:

did I ever tell y’all about the time I accidentally opened a mini casino in my sixth grade classroom?

that year in elementary school we were learning about the ancient mesoamerican cultures, and for our final projects we had to recreate something from that era/region to share with the class. some kids brought in food, some kids brought in dioramas, some kids made clothing and put on a fashion show. for my final project I recreated an aztec game called patolli. it’s basically a board game that involves dice, players, and some light gambling. mine was the most popular project. the game was so much fun that we played it on our lunch breaks for the rest of the year, even after we’d moved on from that part of the curriculum. students from the other 5/6 grade classrooms would come over and play the game with us, too. at first everyone was just gambling with the game pieces I’d made, then we started gambling with snacks from our lunches, then we all started bringing in candy from home, then we started using actual money. even at that age we knew that gambling is bad so we were really quiet and secretive about it until one kid gambled away his shoes and the teachers caught on and put a stop to the game