I haven't posted much lately because not much is going on with me. My days all seem to look something like this:

5:50 AM: Wake up.
7:10 AM: Arrive at school.
8:00 AM - 2:30 PM: "Teach."
3:30 PM: Leave school.
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Personal time.
7:00PM - 10:30: Plan for something.
10:30 PM - 5:50 AM: Sleep.
5:50 AM: Rinse and repeat.

I've thus had a ton of writers' block lately. There's not a ton going on here. It even makes college seem exciting. So, I thought I would add some tidbits from the big thing in life: teaching. Here are some discipline stories and issues with which I've been dealing.

Disclaimer: The following passages are in no way characteristic of my teaching. These are simply the extreme situations that require me to administer consequences. There is a lot more going on in my classroom.

Sleeping In Class

This happened over a week ago, so close to the beginning of the school year. The day before I had to deal with it my housemate had students ask him if they could take a little nap. The story is comparable because he's got the same grade as me (sixth). In response he made everybody stand up and run two laps around the school. Pretty good, but not really my style.

The following day I had a kid dozing off in class. I woke him up numerous times and he continued to fall asleep. I offered to let him stand so that he could stay awake or something that would keep him up. He declined. Eventually I called him over to the guided reading center and told him to sit next to me. As everybody was reading he continued to doze. I continued to wake him up, but to no avail. Eventually he flat out asked me if he could take a nap. I simply responded, "Well, sure. Just lay your head down." To this the heads in the class turned, since it was clearly a test of boundaries. He looked stunned, so I have a reassuring, "Go on, you're tired. Just put your head down for a while." To this he laid his head on the desk. The class continued to watch. I gave him about ten seconds to get halfway to the unconscious state. Then I snuck up close to his ear and said loudly (not yelling), "No you can't go to sleep! Get up!" He was so startled that he nearly fell out of his chair. Nobody has dozed off since.

Oh Those Different Colloquialisms!

A few days after the above incident I start to see a problem developing between the above student and another in my class. They taunt each other and the situation spirals out of control rather quickly. See more on that in the 'Classroom Anger Management' section. Anyhow, my kids were within my sight in the gym one day, but about 50 feet away from where I was standing, as I was waiting to flag down the P.E. teacher to let her know we were there and not in my (still temporary) room. As I was standing there I saw one of the students get up and begin lunging at the other. I shouted and marched back to deal with the situation. I told the attacking student, "Go sit over there!" And, as he was walking, I said, "Stop being such a punk. I of course was going with the "bully" version of punk. That wasn't how he took it. He instead took it as the "punk ass" meaning, which is more feeble and inferior. As we walked back to the room the student refused to talk to me, but finally explained the situation. I apologized for saying what I did and explained that I meant "bully." This was unacceptable to the student; he always seems to play the victim in situations. Luckily my principal walked down the hallway and calmed him down. Things were fine after that, but wow it sucked.

Cracking Down

By the end of week three students were getting away with far too much in the classroom, behavior-wise. My team teacher noticed the same thing and we started cracking down very heavily. Instead of telling students they had warnings or had missed their lunches, we just started marking up our clipboards last Thursday. I gave a warning to at least half of my students and five of them had silent lunch. Up to this point I hadn't made silent lunch a big deal. You just had to sit next to the teacher while you ate and couldn't go around on the playground during our short recess. That all changed Thursday. On Thursday students were sat at their own exclusive table far apart from each other, looking toward the back wall of the cafeteria. They were to remain facing the wall during lunch. Afterward I took them out to the playground and arranged them so that they were all standing in the sun, watching other children play. They would look away and I would say, "You're facing this way," pointing them in the direction of the students free to play. While this was going on some of the other students were playing frisbee. Every now and then the frisbee would land at their feet and the other kids would slowly run over to pick it up. Then, on one occasion, the frisbee hit one of the silent lunch kids who wasn't paying attention. He went to get angry, but I gave him the teacher look and he kind of got mad to himself that he just got pelted by a frisbee that the other kids were playing with. I was laughing so hard inside.

Classroom Anger Management

After thinking critically about what is going on in terms of problem behavior areas, I figured out that I have a handful of students with anger management issues. That is obviously a problem that is beyond my ability to correct. But, I needed to figure out how to manage it in class. One thing was the above mentioned problem with the two kids going at each other. What I did there was put desks on opposite back sides of the room, which are both divided by a bookshelf. I told them that if another problem were to arise, they would both go sit back there where they can't see each other. Also, the new rule is that they can't talk to each other, sit at the same table, or walk in line next to each other -- EVER. That has cut down on incidents a bit.

Beyond the problems of having the two fight, I have a few students who get upset and shutdown when things don't go exactly their way. For this I'm going to have them go to the back of the room and write down what is bothering them. This should channel their frustration and calm them down. Also, I'm presenting everything as a choice to them. "You can either sit here, do nothing, and get a zero for the day, or you can do your work and get credit. The choice is yours." I've also learned to say that and leave them alone, or else they have an outlet to bitch about the situation. Also, don't compare them to other students -- it only makes things worse. Lastly, don't talk to them in front of other students, even if they're barely in earshot.

Response To Cracking Down

Today I read off everybody's "credit rating" in class. Students can build up "credit" by not getting warnings in class. If a student earns five days of credit, he or she can play games when finished with work. I introduced this because I knew that only a few people would build up said credit. Today was the first day anybody could have been eligible and it was a whinefest. They were saying how tough I was, giving warnings out for the slightest things. That was the point. Today they were nearly flawless. Let's see how long that can keep going.