I gave my final exams today. That's several days earlier than the official Newmentia testing schedule. So sue me. At least I gave a final.
Chaos reigns during the final week. I strive not to let anarchy rear its disrespectful head as well. I'm seriously considering keeping my door locked to discourage interruptions. I can't fight the field trips and incentive day and baccalaureate and graduation practices and ring orders and fundraiser distributors and AFLAC reps and baseball games and softball games and banquets and state competitions. But I CAN monitor who pops into my domain unannounced with unclear purpose. One year a friend of the environment traipsed in several different class periods just to use my wastebasket!
My students might as well consider themselves in maximum security next week. Neither a borrower nor a lender be is my motto. I don't ask for extra kids to come to my classroom, and I don't let mine out to visit elsewhere. No flitting here and there to pick up a forgotten item, or to get a drink or go to the bathroom. It's fifty minutes. I don't think they'll dehydrate or have an accident. Since books are checked in, there's no need for backpacks. They are used as cover, you know, to sneak out a cell phone. And speaking of cell phones, if I have even a suspicion that a kid is taking a peek, it goes on my back table until the end of the period. The cell phone, that is. Not the student. Besides, I'm doing them a favor. I could confiscate it upon sight, and send it to the office until the end of the day.
Yes, the end of days is a ca-RAZY time. Best be prepared. Anticipate the unexpected. Be proactive, not reactive.
5 comments:
How about we trade kids next week? I have a nose-digger who wonders why he keeps getting nosebleeds. I have a kid who tips over desks when someone looks at him. I have a kid who hides five or six breakfast burritos in his desk.
What do YOU have?
What are these kids doing in the hallway? Back in my day (good grief I sound old), we practically had to get a pass from the pope to be able leave the classroom. I like your locked door idea. I look forward to hearing stories of shrieks of dismay and head bumps at the locked doors.
Sioux,
I have the not-so-secret cereal smuggler, who comes up the hall with a forbidden Froot Loops container, the lid already peeled back, engaging in horseplay, who dumps the whole thing right in front of my door, steps on some, and walks in like it's somebody else's job to clean it up. AND adds an eyeroll after picking them up one by one, when told to pinch up the crushed ones as well, then feigns throwing the floor breakfast away while palming some to munch after the bell, THEN acts like MRS. HILLBILLY MOM is the one being unreasonable.
Or I have the one who calls another dude a skin flute and pretends he doesn't know what it means, and asks me for the definition, yet turns down the opportunity to pop into the office and ask Mr. Principal for its meaning.
Or the one who is a cross between Waldo and a Whack-A-Mole who appears in a different seat every five seconds, and wonders how I notice, refusing to lay blame on his highlighter-yellow shirt.
Mrs. Hillbilly Mom puts the kibosh on more shenanigans before the tardy bell than most people do all year.
*******
Chick,
You tell me! Some faculty farm them out at the drop of a hat. It mainly happens during the last week, when the assessment of consequences looms in the distant August of next school year.
Just can't wait for them to come swimming .......
Kathy,
Be careful what you can't wait for.
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