humor situation

I thought I'd share this as an example of using humor as a management tool. This works probably best with young kids because, well they just don't know any better or think about how truthful something can be. When I was on the visit, I was teaching grade 6 exploratory. The rule in the band room is no one is on the stage (we have a stage in our room) unless directed to. There's tons of things for students to hurt themselves on or damage, that's why no one's allowed up there. Well 4 grade 6 boys decided to hoof their butts up onto the stage. Of course if I say guys get down there's stuff up there, they're gonna want to look. I decided to tell them really up close "guys you can't be on the stage, you might open the trap door". They looked at me stunned and in awe... "but why Mr.K? where does it go?!" "Well if you accidentally open the trap door it goes to the basement of the school, and we can't get you out for three days". Needless to say the kids looked stunned "we won't do it again mr.k!!". Obviously this is a little playing off how they're still young, but I know they won't go on that stage again, and it was pretty funny. The grade 8's won't fall for that, nor the grade 7's, but hey, while it works for the younger guys, why not?