“No Dan. No I can’t kick them in the throats. No, it never crosses my mind.”
I often find myself telling this to my friend Dan. He is amazed at the sheer amount of will power I must exhibit to not yell, or drop f-bombs at or with my students. He is also amazed at my “commitment to a gag,” which is how he refers to my going to college, pursuing a credential, and actually entering the teaching force.
While at times I would like to tell some of my students to keep their mouths
shut, I haven’t yet. Over the first few weeks of teaching I have found it helpful to establish procedures that will inhibit there opening their mouths in the first place.
Journal writing is one such technique. While journal writing has all sorts of real applications, such as writing-fluency, etc. I have found that it best suits me by keeping my kids mouths closed for the first ten minutes of class. This gives me time to take role and address individual needs as they come up. Once I have all of my administrative stuff out of the way I feel that I able to focus on instruction rather than all of the other hooplah that seems to be associated with this profession.
There is still one sinister menace that I still face on a daily basis and that seems to be everything the associated-student-body does to make high school more enjoyable for students; rallies, in-class announcements, in-class handouts, etc. The one that gets me the most are the “get out of class free cards.” They usually come in the form of some pastel-like slip of small paper and they usually enable the bearer of the card to get out of your class and to the glorious rooms of the attendance office, dean’s office, someone else’s room, etc. I found one method early on of dealing with these-it is the wrong method. Ignore these slips and just hand them to the student at the end of the period. Don’t do this for many reasons. One-sometimes they are important. Two-when students don’t come to an administrator when they’ve been summoned the administrator will question the student for their tardiness, and that student will rat you out quicker than, I don’t know, but quickly. What you should do-glance at these pesky little flyers and check for a time on them. If they specify a time give them to the student when he or she may need them. If they don’t set aside five minutes at the end of the period when your handing back papers and let the students take care of what they need to. Your students’ trips to the office, unless disciplinary, should never take longer than five minutes anyhow.
One caveat here, don’t f around with medical slips, give them to students when they come in, and give students passes to the medical office whenever they ask for them. Even if you know Joey Santorini is just trying to get out of your class, it’s a lot easier to feign dumb than deal with a lawsuit from the Santorini family.
So, I usually just tell Dan that I kick them in the throat with procedures.
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2 comments:
To be honest Taco Fighter, I'm surprised you manage to restrain yourself from kicking your students in the throat as well. Or at least, I'm surprised that you get through days without verbally humiliating one of them, which seems to be your forte.
You know, it's hard to comment on this because it seems like you have found something that works for you, what with all your procedures and what not. Harry Wong would be proud.
Two questions for you though, oh wise sage. First: How do you ensure that they are quiet during their journals? I have tried the same approach but I feel like no matter what topics I include or how many times I check them, a lot of them will blow it off in the interest of talking to the person next to them while I am "distracted"
Also, how do you catch up the students that are always leaving class with those little slips? They are so plentiful, I can never keep track.
Also, should you regard either of those questions with more that a minimum of smart assery, I'm never commenting on your blog again.
I usually give them one minute to get in their seats then I ask them to all take their chairs. Sometimes I have to put my hand in the air like an idiot. I slowly count from one to five by finger with the air-hand. Usually by the middle digit I get a lot of classroom helpy-helpertons that tell everybody else sshhhhh. When I hit five I write 1min on the board. This will mean that they will have to stay for a full minute after school. This sort of punishment allows for helpy-helpertons to spring from all corners of the room the next time my hand goes up. I don’t mind the kids speaking to one another too much. All I ask is that when I need for them to be on task they do so. If you put 1min on the board you need to enforce it that day.
With regard to journal time, I try to move my presence around the room. Their talk is like little patches of fire you need to put it out in single areas before it spreads. Some kids need this presence to stay on task and write. I usually try me best to take care of all of my administrative stuff during this time, role, etc.
Another thing that I find helpful is that before students begin writing in their journals I will go over the questions with them, reading it aloud and taking any vocab questions that may arise.
When making the journal question I try and refer to the old getting married adage, ‘something old, new and blue.’ I change it a bit though. Something vague/ personal/ pop-culturish(1), something referring to the last lesson/ core text(2), something referring to where we are going with the new lesson(3). In each of my questions I try to incorporate one aspect from each of the three points. I feel that students who are not keeping with the reading or lessons can at least answer the vague/ personal/ pop-culture question. Sometimes throwing a controversial statement can get them to write on particularly tough days, Friday, half-days, everyday, etc., but try and make sure your “something controversial” has relevance to your lesson for that day. Oh, under no circumstances should you be the point of controversy, well at least not in costume, I had a lot of explaining to do last Friday about my “ghost outfit with the red merit-patches.”
With regard to catching up students who leave my classroom I try to do it when they get back, if the class is in activity groups, if not after class. I’m not going to stop class for thirty-four seniors to catch up one who is in the ASB. Most of the time their fellow students will do this for them, you’ll see them come back in, they’ll lean over and ask what the hell their idiot teacher is rambling on about now. Their seat neighbor will usually fill them in.
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