Have you heard of the game "Lemmings"? It was a classic at the Orme house. Basically you have to get your Lemming herd (herd?) from the beginning of the course into the goal at the end.

But there are obstacles in the way and you have different tools to insure your victory. You have lemmings with umbrellas so they can fall from great heights safely, you have lemmings with shovels, Lemmings that build stairs. There are others, but the one I am talking about today (yes, there is a point to the Lemming orientation) is the blocker.
It's the blocker's job to keep lemmings from moving on until it is safe to do so. I was a blocker today.

I had a student who wanted to talk with his friends in the class when everyone was supposed to be working independently. No matter what I said to him, he always managed to meander to the other side of the room. Finally (with my lemming skills), I walked him over to his desk and stood right in the pathway to his friends. I didn't make a big deal of it, but I watched him continue to stand and sort of shuffle from side to side, trying to get away from where he was supposed to be. It made me laugh inside SO hard. I was a lemming!

The lemmings in the videogame are not particularly smart. Neither was this kid. It took him a while to figure out I was blocking him from what he wanted to do. He eventually got to work on his own, but not without a lot of help.

In the videogame, the blockers are usually the ones that get blown up in the end, but perhaps that won't apply to me or this situation. I'm sure he wanted to blow me up, if that would get me out of his way...