Distracted Boys

Wednesday. Middle school "success". 

Success is a class strongly suggested for a certain type of student--the kind of student who isn't doing so well in school. It's an elective, and while the classes tend to be smaller, they also tend to have more of the kind of student who is more likely to act out. 

But, luckily, on this day, the class had guest speakers. 

The schools now have a thing called a wellness center. It's a place where students who need a mental break can go. The two speakers were from the school's wellness center, and apparently they meet with the class regularly. So, the kiddos were used to them.

Once I had taken roll, I let the guest speakers take over. I sat down and wrote up my notes from the previous group. (The rest of the day I had seventh grade math.) 

Only, I couldn't tune out completely. I noticed a couple boys in the back of the room, not engaging with the lesson. Uh oh...

I chose proximity as my method of classroom control. I went over and sat right behind them.

Jefferson asked to use the bathroom. 

So, now it was only me and Orson. By my presence, I got Orson to put away his cell phone. But he was still bored. So, he pulled out a jar or something and managed to get a clump of some white substance with the consistency of lotion on his desk. 

All the while, the guest speakers were discussing active listening. There were video clips. They were asking the students to identify what the speakers were doing and whether they were active listening well. They were giving out raffle tickets for any response: correct or not. 

Orson, however, was now determined to clean up the mess on his desk. He started by using tissue, which was inadequate to the task. I told him to get paper towels, which luckily the teacher had on the other side of the room. He got up and brought back one paper towel.

So, Orson had to get up multiple times (rather than bringing back enough paper towels to complete the task in one go). During one of these trips, Orson noticed that his raffle tickets had been destroyed in the gloop. He asked me for more. Well, it wasn't my lesson.

So, Orson asked one of the guest speakers to replace his tickets. She said no. (And I managed to keep the smile off my face.) 

Around this time, Jefferson returned from the bathroom. And he wanted to know what he had missed. But I'm of the mind that if one needed the bathroom in the middle of a lesson, it is on that student to figure out what was missed while he was gone. So, I wasn't going to catch him up (not that he was paying attention before he left, anyway). 

Finally, Orson got his mess cleaned up. And Jefferson settled back into his seat. My proximity wasn't helping settle either of them. Sigh. 

The guest speakers finished their presentation, so it was time for the raffle. They drew five names. Guess who was one of the names? (It wasn't Orson as his raffle tickets were destroyed.) 

Ms. M wasn't terribly surprised by the names left in my note to her. She's pretty strict, so I imagine Jefferson and Orson might not like the consequences of their inattention.