Friday, December 12, 2008

The AP Difference

AP class. Cake, right?

AP stands for advanced placement, and these are fast-paced college-level courses. At the end of the year the students can take the AP test, and if they pass it they get college credit (if you've never heard of this, see here). So, the students in these classes are a fairly bright, motivated bunch. That should make my job easier, right?

The thing about AP classes is that they can get just as crazy as any other class if they have too little to do. And the "I'll do it for homework" excuse is not an excuse--they really will finish the work for homework. Luckily, today they had a quiz.

Fourth period. They came in rather loud. They were roaming around the room. They were talking to their friends. The bell rang, and they basically ignored it. But then the AP difference kicked in--when I called for their attention, I got it.

I passed out the quizzes. The students continued to talk. Did I mention that they were loud? But once the quizzes were out, I reminded them that they were taking a quiz, and in less than ten seconds the class was silent. (This is unusual. It usually takes a good two minutes to get a class that was that loud to settle.)

The quiz didn't take the entire period. They had a different assignment for after the quiz. And then the noise level... Well, let me just say that they could compete in a loudness competition with the tenth grade class where I almost had a fight a couple years back. That class was so loud that the teacher next door called for backup as well.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.