A/N: I do not own Arthur or the characters. All Arthur material belongs to Marc Brown.
The Story
Mr. Ratburn's class is already in the classroom before class starts but Mr. Ratburn isn't in the room yet. In the meantime, Mr. Ratburn's students are sitting at their desks talking among themselves.
A few minutes later, Mr. Ratburn finally steps into his classroom and walks to his desk, carrying a bag with some for the classroom. When at his desk, he puts his bag down and gets to work. He isn't sitting at his desk, instead he's standing over it writing some things down.
Mr. Ratburn's students are aware of their teacher's presence, nevertheless they continue to talk and talk and the conversations are various from set of desks to set of desks. Brain though decides to stop talking and reads a book as his friends classmates keep talking to each other.
The classroom is loud and does get louder and Mr. Ratburn is having trouble concentrating on what he's doing with the noise of his students.
Finally, Mr. Ratburn has had enough. He quickly looks up at his students and as he does, he angrily shouts this at them:
"SHUT….UP!"
The class starts to go silent before Mr. Ratburn finishes what he says and soon there is complete silence. Mr. Ratburn then goes back to what he was doing. His students are shocked at what he just told them, but don't say anything at all out of fear that they'd get in trouble. Some of them were even startled!
Buster though, thinking about what he just heard his teacher say to him and his classmates, cannot help but smile and then giggle. Arthur, sitting next to him looks at him. Francine and Muffy also notice him. Arthur, Francine, and Muffy put their fingers up to their mouths trying to get Buster to be quiet but he continues to giggle. Buster is trying not to giggle so loud and covers his mouth but Mr. Ratburn can hear him.
Without stopping what he's doing or looking up at his students, Mr. Ratburn shouts but in a less harsh tone, "Be Quiet!"
Buster finally controls himself.
As Mr. Ratburn is finishing up what he's doing, he starts thinking about what he said to his students. And then when he's finished, he walks to the center of his class and talks to them.
"Class," he says, "I'm very sorry about what I barked at you guys. That was a very poor choice of words on my part. I did want you guys to be quiet and I needed to concentrate on what I was doing, but as a teacher that was extremily rude and disrespectful of me and I should have stopped, thought for a moment, and asked you all in a more respectful way to be quiet."
The class is taken aback by this.
"There was no excuse for what I said," admits Mr. Ratburn, "and it's not nice to talk to children, or anyone for that matter, like that. So can you please accept my apology and forgive me?"
The students look at each other for a moment and then turn back to Mr. Ratburn.
"I forgive you, Mr. Ratburn," says Arthur.
"Me too," says Buster.
"As do I," says Francine.
"I forgive you too," says Binky.
Then Brain says, "We should have been quiet in the first place. We knew better, so I'm sorry too."
"Brain," says Sue Ellen, "You weren't even talking like the rest of us."
"I know," says Brain.
"But Brain's right," says Francine, "we shouldn't have been talking so loud."
"Actually we shouldn't have been talking at all," says Alex. "So I'm sorry Mr. Ratburn."
"I'm sorry too," says Fern.
Then the whole class apologizes to Mr. Ratburn.
"That's okay class," he says, "and next time, I'll try to talk to you less harshly.
Then class begins like normal.
Then End
A/N: This was just something I threw together. However, this is based on a real event that happened to my classmates and me in one of my classes in High School. I won't reveal my teacher's name out of respect and for privacy, and I won't reveal my teacher's gender or the class I was in but the students in my class were talking amongst themselves. Then the teacher looked up and as quickly as the teacher looked up, the teacher shouted "SHUT….UP!" to us all. And everyone obeyed. Then the teacher went back to what to what was being done.
Even though my teacher was serious, I kind of found it funny and couldn't help but giggle at what my teacher said to us. I tried to stay quiet but I think the teacher heard me, although I don't know if the teacher knew it was me, but the teacher, this time not stopping what was being done or looking up, shouted "Be quiet," but in a less harsh tone. However, unlike Mr. Ratburn, my teacher did not admit the wrong the teacher was in for shouting that, I mean my class shouldn't have been talking in the first place and our teacher had the right to tell us to be quiet, but should have said "BE QUIET, or SILENCE." Well, that's at least how I think it should have been. If I was a teacher, however, and I said "shut up," to my students, I don't know if I would have soon after or later felt bad about that or not. I guess it would depend on the kind of person I was.