...is my friend.
Last week... Well, I don't want to turn this into one long whine. It was bad. Really bad.
Fifth and sixth periods were the worst.
On Wednesday and Thursday, lunch was extended for various school activities (something about a college fair day and a career day). To get the extra time, a minute was taken away from the passing period, so instead of getting six minutes to get from class to class, the students had five.
One thing the school has is a tardy sweep. If a student does not get to his/her class on time (before the bell), he/she doesn't get to go to class but instead is sent to a kind of in school detention for the period.
On Wednesday, they all managed to get to class on time. On Thursday, the ringing bell surprised some of them. (They were not even close to the room, only running to make it after the bell started ringing. And it wasn't like they were on their way. They were chillin' with their friends instead of making their way to class.)
I closed the door and wouldn't let them come inside. Of course, the door was unlocked, so they tried to get in anyway. I shooed them out.
The classroom has two doors, one at the front of the room and one at the back. The door at the front of the room remains unlocked. The door at the back stays locked.
I turned away to do some getting-class-started stuff, and when I turned around, I noticed that there was movement by the back door. That's when I saw four students, the students that I had sent to tardy sweep, attempting to sneak in. (The door is always unlocked from the inside, so a student near the door had to have opened it to let them in.)
One boy was even crawling across the floor, trying to keep his head below the desks so as to not be detected.
They protested loudly, but I still kicked them out.
And the class was so much calmer with them gone. (Still not what I would call a good class, but much more manageable.)
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
6 comments:
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O my grief Liz! Thank heavens for tardy sweep! I've never heard of this term - it was just plain old detention!
ReplyDeleteNever had a tardy sweep, but I'm laughing at the image of a student crawling across the floor, trying to avoid being noticed.
ReplyDeleteI never heard of a tardy sweep either :)
ReplyDeleteI would not like a tardy sweep. You get stuck doing something and you're screwed. Plus, it seems kind of odd to punish a student by not letting them go to class. I mean, it IS school after all.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of a tardy sweep, but this is another reminder of why I no longer teach. :)
ReplyDeleteVR Barkowski
None of the schools I sub at have a tardy sweep, and it seems counterproductive! Obviously it was distracting, and now they're not in class so they're not learning anything. And isn't learning the point of school in the first place?
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