Today I stood in front of my class and I asked them, “Why do you think I had you do this assignment?” I got half-hearted “cause it will help us” responses. I absolutely went off. I told them that I do not give them assignments because I am trying to find a way to kill an hour of class. I told them that I do not go out looking for ways to torture them just because I find it amusing. Every single thing we do in this class is for YOUR benefit. The point of yesterday’s exercise was for everyone to become an expert on one word and help everyone else in the class understand that word and give them context for being able to remember the word later, oh… on the test on Monday maybe. Instead I got upset and pissy in class because most of the class was not working or paying attention. We wasted a class period on screwing around and now if anyone wants to pass the test I suggest that they study over the weekend. The students didn’t let me down, they let one another down and that is a really sad thing.

I told them that I have had complaints about the screwing around distracting people so that they can’t pay attention and learn in class. I told them that I don’t like coming down on people and writing up referals is not my idea of a good time. But if I allow the misbehavior to be the rule of the day in my class then I am failing each and every student because I am not giving them the opportunity to learn that I agreed to do as my job. If I do not teach my students then I have failed and I am unwilling to do that. So the talking and sleeping and lack of work will no longer be tolerated. I will have a stack of referals on my desk and I will no longer engage with the people who are refusing to participate in their education. I qualified that yes, I have some kids who are fully participating and doing everything as they should–this lecture is not directed at any of them.

Most of the class looked very chagrined. I think maybe they heard me. I’m crossing my fingers for Monday. (They were really good in class today.)