Nothing can be accomplished on a half day.  They always fall before a vacation or a weekend.  Any potential for the half day is crippled by a shortfall of attendance and a truncated teaching schedule.  What can you do when you have a half empty room (half full for the pesky optimists) and you see half of your regularly scheduled classes?  You can catch up lagging students on missed work.  Ironically, the kids who miss the most full school days never miss a half day because half days are fun!  I anticipate their arrival and dig out a few extra copies of stuff they owe me to make their fun day miserable.  Another popular option is to show a movie.  TV shows work best because you can generally watch an entire episode in 42 minutes without commercial interruption.  With a feature length movie, the kids will see a third or a half of the movie in one class period depending on its length, and if it is a movie they have never seen before, they will want to see the whole thing and complain about not seeing the entire film when you return from break with new lesson plans on actual subject material.  Nevermind the fact that they talked during the entire movie and entirely missed the plot; the movie was started and by universal decree it must be finished!  The aforementioned school dance is another half day option, but they involve considerable planning for proper execution.  A poorly planned dance will surely decay into chaos, leaving us with bruised or pregnant students, or both.  To prevent these mishaps, we teachers must station ourselves in the dance, unlocking the lips of half day paramours and disentangling the flailing limbs of half day pugilists, all set to horrible, terribly loud music distorted to the point of aural toxicity: the fat beats farting from subwoofers, the computerized autotune voices singing from the tweeters, compromising the integrity of the sound system, pleasing the students, killing the proctors.

I'll take anything over a dance.

To that end, I will remove it from my countdown and give myself only 9 work days until winter break.

I spent half of my half day with my most loathsome class. I was glad to see that three notorious troublemakers decided to stay home. I figured class would be smooth, and it was going just fine until one girl tripped over her chair and fell to the floor pretty hard. I rushed over to check on her, and she was full of drama, totally milking her moment, and I could tell she was fine. I gave her a minute and asked her to get up. As I'm helping this girl to her feet, I notice three knuckleheads laughing their heads off on the other side of the room. I deal with my injured girl, let a friend escort her to the nurse, and address these cackling morons on the other side of the room.

I pointed North, South, East, and West at my classroom rules. I asked, what is rule number one? "Respect everyone and everything in the classroom!" I lay into these kids, asking how they would feel if they were injured and everyone else was laughing at them as they writhed on the ground in pain. They didn't get it. One girl kept laughing her fool head off, so I closed her lab book and told her to get out of my room. I held her book out, waiting for her to take it, but she was too busy laughing to acknowledge my order. I threw her book at the door and said "GET OUT, NOW." Suddenly, it wasn't funny anymore. "Oh, how can you throw my stuff? Gonna disrespect me like that?" "Go," I said, adding "You're not respecting me, my classroom, or your classmates, so why should I treat you with any respect? GET OUT."

She huffed off, out the door. A boy piped up to offer her defense. I told him not to get involved. He told me I was wrong for throwing her things. I told him that I didn't care and that if he kept talking, he would join her. He kept talking. I told him to leave. He huffed and puffed his way out the door.

I put out a few more fires, none worth mentioning. I love their sense of entitlement. I explained that my classroom is not a democracy, it's an absolute monarchy with me as King, and I make the rules that they will follow. Break the rules and you're gone. This isn't up for discussion or a vote. If you make it hard for me to do my job, I make it hard for you to pass my class by kicking you out, costing you points and valuable classroom time.

They came back next period, telling me that an administrator said they should come back to class. I told them that they weren't welcome back and to get lost for another period. I've given these kids enough chances. I tried for five weeks to work with them, but they just don't get it, so it's my way or the highway. I'm not going to screw up the educations of the fifteen other kids in the room who cause no disruptions to try and save the five assholes who want to disturb my class. They lack maturity, and by age 16, I expect maturity, a modicum of decorum.

It's a long weekend. I've got Monday off and I plan to enjoy it. Four teaching days next week. I love short weeks.