Phantom Cramp

Thursday. Eighth grade English. 

I had covered this about a month ago (and I have covered Ms. R's class many, many times), so I knew what I was in for. I also knew that her co-teacher was going to be out. The night before I made a silly wish. "Wouldn't it be great if Ms. S was subbing for the co-teacher?" 

Guess who ended up subbing for the co-teacher? 

It made for a way easier day. 

Third period. The class had just finished their warm up, and I explained their assignment. They had chosen a story or article the previous week (there were a limited number of choices, but they did get to pick amongst them), and Ms. S and I had passed out the stories to the students. They were to annotate the story they picked, and then they'd have questions to answer about them. 

While they were getting started on the assignment, Russell "fell" out of his chair. He was lying on the ground, not moving, just lying there. 

Ms. S and I conferred. She remarked that Russell should probably be kicked out of class. I concurred. Having known Russell from the art class, I knew that his behavior wasn't going to improve. This was the perfect excuse to send him out. 

Ms. S called another classroom to find him a spot. Russell complained. "But I have a cramp!"

Uh huh. Sure you do. 

Ms. S escorted Russell away. And when she returned, neither of us had to deal with his shenanigans for the rest of the period. Bliss.

Did this scare the rest of the class? Of course not. But at least they mostly read quietly. 

I do not kick students out often enough. There's a part of me that wants to give them one more chance. Maybe they'll actually "be good", which is what they always promise when I go to assign a consequence. The thing is, they never do. They just get worse. 

Lost his Audience

Seventh grade science. They were constructing an argumentative essay (using sentence frames) debating what caused the "canals" on Mars.

Justin walked into second period in play mode. He took way too long to get seated, and then he immediately got up because he "needed" something. And then...

In less than five minutes of class, I was done. Luckily, their teacher had left a list of nearby classrooms to send difficult children to. So, it was time to boot Justin.

Of course he resisted. But eventually he went where I sent him--Ms. D's class.

Before third period, I had a chance to talk to Ms. D. And it sounds like the punishment fit the crime.

Clearly, Justin had been playing to the crowd before. His antics were meant to elicit laughter. In the other classroom, Ms. D sat him near a group of cheerleaders. And they shut him down pretty quickly.

A year or two difference in age does make a huge difference.

Justin tried to entertain the girls. They gave him a look of pure disdain. So, Justin spent the period quietly working on his essay.

As this is all I wanted of him, I was pretty happy with that outcome.

A very different Justin returned to class at the end of the period. (I wanted him to return so he could turn in his work.) Let's hope that next time Justin has a sub in class, he doesn't immediately think it's play time.

Don't Date High School Boys

Winter break is over, but because I'm always posting last week's stories, I've pulled this week's posts from before the break. 

It was the last day before the winter break. Sort of. The continuation high school had to attend the Friday while the rest of the schools in the district were off. (They did a weird thing with the calendar this year.) But it was my last day, as no teachers from the continuation high school were going to be out.

And, as with all of December, I was again covering an extra period.

Which was unusual. This teacher had an emergency and had to leave early. (I heard it was a chipped tooth or something similar.)

For those keeping score, this gave me my second bonus day for the month.

Anyway, the class (there were like seven present) were busy watching their phones, mostly. They had a project, but most had already checked out mentally for the break. However, the room was dead silent.

So, I could hear Warren's entire conversation. It was all about his 22-year-old girlfriend and all the *ahem* things they did together. Yes, he was talking about sex. He was in the middle of relating one escapade when he looked up.

"Yes, we are listening. You can hear a pin drop in here. We can hear you."

Nope, that wasn't me. That was Jason. Jason M. No, not music Jason. (Music Jason is Jason C.) Jason M. is more of a gamer. (Certain names are popular. As I frequently have both Jasons in class at the same time, I am quite good at remembering which Jason is which.)

Jason M. was seated right in front of me. And I was grateful he spoke up. I gave Warren a glare.

"You might want to pick another topic," was all I said.

Warren didn't. He tried talking more softly, but the room was silent. I caught the gist of it.

All I could think was, why would a 22-year-old date a high school boy? (Warren says he's 18. I'm inclined to believe him. It's likely true.) Doesn't she realize that everything they do will be discussed with his friends? In class.

Probably not. If I knew who she was, I'd give her a heads-up.

My email to their teacher was short:

Yeah, so they didn't do a whole lot. No issues other than that. Although, we heard way more about [Warren's] sex life than I care to know. (He's dating a 22 year old.)

His reply was about the same: 

Wow...ok thanks for the heads up...I will talk to them

And revenge is sweet. I did warn Warren to find a different topic. If he's okay putting his business on front street, I'm okay letting Mr. A know that's what was discussed in his absence. (If Mr. A embarrassed him, all the better.) 

Squared

On Friday, Palmer slipped out of class about two minutes before the bell. It was the class right before lunch.

When a class lines up at the door before the bell, I get wary. I watch. Most of the time I urge them to sit, but sometimes my instructions are ignored, especially if they're used to lining up.

I didn't see Palmer leave, but when he did, others in the class commented. And I heard. I took a quick roll and figured out who was gone.

Normally I'd make a note of this and move on. But I was returning Monday...

Early in the period on Monday, I gently chided Palmer for leaving early. He admitted it. I asked, "You'll make this up today, right?" He agreed.

At the end of the period I reminded him. He said he remembered.

And he did. He didn't fuss and he didn't protest. I kept him long enough to "make up" for the time he missed on Friday.

Normally I'd've still made a note of this. But I appreciated not having to fight him. So, I let that be the end of it.

If only the kiddos realized how easy it is to get out of my note...

Voices Carry

Math support. It's an extra math class for students who need extra help in math. Because they need extra help in math, these classes tend to be filled with students who hate math. And act out. And are freshmen...

Yeah, it was a bad, bad period.

I emailed the teacher and his co-teacher that evening...

(The teacher has a co-teacher for all but this period. But these students are also in with the co-teacher in another period, so she knows them. I figured she wanted feedback, too, so I included her in the email.)

It was a two-day assignment.

The worst offenders were Lawrence and Jose.

I ran into the co-teacher the next day. She informed me that she had made her displeasure known (she had "ripped them a new one"), and three students, including Larry and Jose, were going to spend the period with her (in the learning center).

Fine by me.

When they arrived to class, I wondered. The co-teacher called me to tell me to send the miscreants to her. So, I told them they had to go. They put up a protest, for a moment. Then they happily agreed.

I walked away, but I heard Jose say to Larry, "We'll take our time getting over there. We'll get there with two minutes left in the period..."

A moment later they were gone.

The room was loud, but I still easily heard Jose. And now I knew what my next step needed to be. I called the co-teacher and told her (1) the students had just left class, and (2) what Jose had said.

"Well, then, I should come out to meet them," the co-teacher said.

Surprisingly, the class settled after that. They still weren't on task, but they weren't nearly as crazy as they had been the day prior. Which just goes to show how getting rid of a couple bad players helps control a classroom.

But then, suddenly the students in class were at the door, opening it, looking out...

I got over there and told the students to sit down. I poked my head out to see what the commotion was about. Two security personnel (with their golf carts) and the co-teacher were having a discussion with the kiddos who should have already been at the other room.

It looked to me like the kiddos left the room and were planning on hanging out around the "porch" of the classroom. Because they were seated on the ledge. And I got a definite "hanging out" vibe.

I closed the door and turned back to the kiddos in the room. They had work to do.

No one ventured near the door again. One of the security guys came in and wandered the classroom. (The co-teacher had told me earlier that she had asked them to check on us during class time due to the craziness of the prior day.) He left. And things went back to the mild chaos that I expected of them.

I have no idea what happened to Larry and Jose. I'm sure it was a reasonable consequence for their actions.

I swear, teenagers don't get that their voices carry. They talk amongst themselves as if the adults can't hear them. Silly boys.

The Troublemaker

On Thursday, Caleb stormed into the classroom, bellowing that I had "gotten him in trouble" as he thunked into his seat.

I attempted to explain that all I had done was to report what he had done, and he was the one who had gotten himself into trouble. I say "attempted" because Caleb wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.

Sigh.

I'm not sure why he was surprised. Or angry. Because, seriously, he should have known.

On Wednesday, I was covering the math class at the continuation high school. (On Thursday I covered the computer literacy class at the same school, hence seeing Caleb again.) Caleb was in 3rd period. 3rd period is right after they have a 15 minute snack break.

The school has a fairly liberal restroom pass policy. The only restriction is that they're not supposed to go for the first or last 10 minutes of class.

Caleb walked into 3rd period just about at the bell. He insisted that he had to use the restroom right then. I told him he could go in 10 minutes.

Oh no. This was not going to work for him. He had to go right now.

If it was such a dire emergency, why didn't he go during snack? He had a full 15 minutes.

He was "busy" he said. Well, if he was busy, he clearly didn't need to go that badly. Then it turned into he didn't need to go during snack. My response was the same. (Or it might have been the other way around. Either way, the story changed as I questioned him on it.)

Caleb... Yeah, Caleb doesn't back down. He's one of those students who... I don't know how to describe him. But I've dealt with him quite a bit, so I knew it was going to be 10 minutes of arguing, and I just wasn't in the mood.

I informed Caleb that I'd let him go, but I was going to let Mr. F know what had transpired. He said he was okay with that.

Mr. F, the math teacher, is one of the strict ones. And they all know this. I knew that writing down this incident would result in a consequence for Caleb. He should have known it too.

So, when he stormed into the classroom the next day, I wasn't sure what the problem was. He had agreed that Mr. F would be informed. So, really, he should have known.

(Before I get comments about restricting restroom usage, if it's clear it's an emergency I wouldn't have hesitated to let him go. This was more a case of a failure to plan as he had just had a break.)

A Choice

Back to the 8th grade science class. We're getting to the end of these stories. I should finish them before the end of this year. This particular technique works in all sorts of classes, but it was particularly helpful here. 

"This isn't my seat."

Turns out a boy was in her seat, so she took another girl's seat, displacing her, too. I only got the boy to move by letting him know this was a punishable offense. (Detention.)

Naturally, this incident made it into my note.

Wednesday, there was a new warning on the board about assigned seats or detentions.

Yet, I still got the questions. They wanted to sit next to their friends. (Obviously, this was not a good idea.)

Instead of a flat no, I gave them a choice. Sure, they could sit there. But the payment was a detention.

I got no takers. I guess the price was too high.

The Consequence

I was warned about 6th period. So, I was surprised when they actually settled to silence (with quite a bit of prompting from me). But the silence was tenuous. Every little thing broke it.

Monica seemed to be the center of the broken silences. She wasn't the only one talking, but when I clamped down on her, the rest of the class settled. Okay, then.

A boy walked into the room. He had a pass. For Monica. Oh, goody.

Monica packed up her stuff. Happily left. And the silences remained unbroken.

Ten minutes later Monica returned. She was ticked, and she had to tell the whole class her travails.

She had been called back to her 5th period class. Apparently, she had thrown some trash on the floor on her way out. The teacher called her back to pick up all the trash off his floor. And she was a bit put out by it.

I thought it was an excellent consequence for her actions. Luckily, the period (and day) was almost over, so I didn't have to hear about Monica's troubles any longer.