More and more students in my Support class are firmly in my camp, getting as frustrated as I am with the behavior of a shrinking number. I’m able to use that student support to get others quiet quickly. I’m working on using that to get students staying on task longer.
A certain student in the Support class handed her phone over to me today with minimal cajoling. Another one I didn’t even have to ask more than once. I attribute this to the fact that I take care of this problem without turning phones over to administration. I typically hand phones back at the end of the period.
Again in my Support class, Student A and B almost got into a fight today. Student A is a kid I really like, one who honestly wants to get something out of the course (or, at least, wants to pass), but is insanely flustered by not being able to concentrate through all the misbehavior flying around. I told him to sit down: “I got this, Student A. Thank you.” Addressing the other fellow: “Student B, get out. Wait for me on the bench.” The class was much quieter then. I fervently hope that Student A felt supported. Those two won’t be sitting near each other again.
Prior to this, Student B took a book from Student C while on the way to his desk. Student C was looking like, “What the…” since he’d done nothing to provoke the theft. I firmly and physically escorted Student B back to his seat, put the books back where they belonged, and apologized to Student C. Student B also took candy from the desks of two surrounding students, then looked at me to claim he didn’t do it. Student B needs to go. This is the fourth referral I’ve written on him this year. Sorry, that story wasn’t a treat. It was a trick.
I now see that creating banks of words to use when writing sensory description is what we need to do in the Support class. We filled up small Picture Write Notes today based on observations about a piece of candy. I wrangled their attention, taking one sense at a time, drawing five students up to the board for each sense to write their ideas for all to see. They weren’t great, but we made it through.
My English 3s are great (though they are tanking their recent vocabulary tests)! One student walked in with red eyes today and a startling inability to focus. He’s referral number six for the year, the second one I’ve written for him. But even this kid is not a huge problem and all others are with me as I push the class forward.
While my referral count is at an all-time high, they are all for the same two students. My other 132 students seem to be just fine.
Best costume in my class: Pac-Man.
Best teacher costume I saw: Leon from The Professional by a teacher who always has the coolest movie-reference costumes (Shaun from Shaun of the Dead and Nice Guy Eddie from Reservoir Dogs in previous years).
Speech seems ready for me to push them in a way that I haven’t pushed other Speech classes. It’s not that they are all rock stars and completing all the work, but enough of them seem bored with the speeches we’ve done so far that I want to step up my level of expectation. I’ve done that on the next speech, both in terms of requirements and turn-around time, so we’ll see how that plays out next week.
I’m worried the visual aides will be horrible, so I might need to give them my quick PPT on slide design and give groups a second shot at presenting their surveys. We’ve worked our way through several failed presentations from last year. I hope what I’m pointing out and what they are seeing translates to their products.