"Upon opening the door to room 207 during study hall, one can usually hear an odd, undistinguishable sound filling the air. Accompanying the sound is a girl and a toy. Stacked up high on the table is the object of her fascination: speed stacks. With a look of concentration on her face, she begins the cycle. Within seconds, she has the first leg of the cycle already down. Immediately, without flinching, she moves into the 6-6 stack, and mechanically down-stacks each group of six. Skillfully, she begins to execute the last stack of the cycle: the 1-10-1 stack—a stack that required persistence and time on her part to perfect. Clearly, she was enjoying herself. From the moment she dumped the bright orange cups onto the table and situated them on the non-slip stack mat with a built in timer, she entered into another reality. I was amazed at her precision; she made stacking look easy, but from experience, I knew it was far from it. With ease, she moved from one stack to the next; the cups, it seemed, had taken over her body and enveloped her mind. Wearing a huge grin, she looked down at her time: 23.31 seconds. “Stack faster…” she muttered, still smiling. Stepping back up to the table, a new challenge awaited her: crush her previous time. For her, the excitement had just begun.

Three years ago, I was introduced to a student who introduced me to a unique hobby that has forever changed my life and study hall forever. One day, during the ninety minute block of boredom, otherwise referred to as study hall, a usually quiet sophomore pulled a stack of cups out of her backpack and began to stack them. Within seconds she had the attention of the entire room. I fell head-over-heels in love with this hobby from the moment I saw it – and so did the other students. The kids were as eager as I was to learn this new challenge. She demonstrated slowly how each stack was built and then pulled another stack of cups out of her backpack – it was race time. Thus proceeded the study hall, formerly know as the ninety minute block of boredom.

The only thing I could think about for the rest of the day was that silly stack of plastic cups. I absolutely had to have them. A few days later, I proudly carried two sets of speed stacks into study hall. With four sets of cups, we could really play now. Study hall tournaments soon began – prestige being granted to the winner.

Because of twelve cups, my study hall has become a class envied by many. In less than a week, the word about this new activity spread like wild-fire throughout the high school. I now have kids staying later and later after school in order to stack cups. In fact, each day, I am forced to kick students out of my room just so I can go home.

It is amazing how great of an impact speed stacks has had on my students. Never before have I seen so many students showing so much interest in an activity. It is a great activity that I can engage in with the students. It allows me to get to know my students better and enables me to better connect with them in the classroom."