Lecture begins.  I have a bellwork assignment on the board; get out your homework, I'm coming around to check it.  I either informally check homework or I collect it.  I'm big on checking because it's much less time consuming for me to grade, and I was planning on going over the assignment during the period, so there would not be any benefit to the collection of this assignment.  I checked my attendance records, saw that three people were absent yesterday, and I distribute a copy of the assignment to each absence.  Generally, I give them credit for the homework if they pay attention while I'm going over it because, hey, I can be a nice guy.  

The homework was about emission spectra, energy states, and electron configuration.  This is always a confusing topic for kids with all of the different energy levels and sublevels in atoms, so I make sure I spend some extra time on it to give the topic resonance when it comes to bonding.  I begin reviewing the homework.  I take it problem by problem, reading the questions, explaining the answers with words and pictures.  I spent about 5 minutes explaining a fundamental question on the homework.  I get about three questions ahead of it, to let's say question 46, and the PSAT absentee wants the answer to question 43.  I tell her no, that I just covered that for 5 minutes, and I'm not going back over it.  I could tell she wasn't paying attention to me during my explanation.  Teachers observe their rooms constantly.  

She grunts when I deny her an explanation. "UHHHHHHHH (then under her breath) he's getting on my fuckin' nerves."  Her friend turns to her and tells her to quiet down.  I chose to ignore her comment.  She continued, "I just can't take it in here no more."  I wasn't going to ignore that, so I pointed to the door and told her that if she wanted to leave, get out.  She picked up her things and left.  The rest of the class went smoothly and I prepared them for the test I plan to give today (TGIF.)

I decide to call home before this girl gets home with another story, because she is notorious for manipulating the truth.  No answer, so I leave a detailed message on the machine.  I get an e-mail to call the parent back, and I do so after a few tasks I had to complete after school.  Mom answers the phone and we begin talking.  First, it's civil.  She understands that her daughter should not behave in that way.  However, it's my job to teach her daughter and I need to understand that, and it's her daughter's job to learn in school, and if you're not going to give her an education, she's going to fight for it.  "You already got yours - your education - she's trying to get hers."  A quotable quote.  I explain the situation.  Your daughter missed class yesterday, but she was in the building, and it was her responsibility to come see me to get the class materials and instruction she missed after school.  She did not come to see me.  I was reviewing yesterday's assignment, had reviewed a problem for 5 minutes and was now three questions beyond the question she wanted the answer to, so I denied her request because she was not paying attention.

To her daughter in the background, she says, "He says you wasn't paying attention."

"I was mom, I didn't even have the worksheet that everyone else had."

"She says you never gave her the worksheet."

"Excuse me, but she knew what question I was talking about.  So, she had the sheet in front of her.  Two other people were absent yesterday.  I made sure that all of my absentees got the class materials.  She definitely had the worksheet."

"She says she didn't!"

Now it turns into a he said / she said.  I know I'm right.  I gave this girl the stuff at the beginning of class.  The mother begins to accuse me of failure to complete my job as a teacher, so she explains my job to me.  I keep repeating, "Yes, I agree," to all of her "You're the teacher, it's your job to teach her," comments.  She defined all of our roles - my job as teacher, her daughter's role as student, her role as parent.  I didn't need the clarification, but maybe it made mom feel a little better.  I'm stonewalling her, just telling her that I agree with her, and she gets heated, raises her voice and changes the inflection in her voice to assert her dominance over the poor teacher.  

I keep stonewalling, and end by saying, that it's her daughter's responsibility to see me for work she missed and that I do not have time for individualized instruction during every class.  If she needs more attention, she needs to see me after school.  Mom is frustrated by her failure to bait me into a shouting match, and she promptly cuts me off as I'm about to say something, telling me that if something like this happens again that she will be in to see me face to face, and I invite her to come down anytime to discuss whatever she would like or to observe my class.  She dismisses me in her final act of aggression, basically saying, "Okay, goodbye," and hanging up.

Apple, tree.  Never far from each other, are they?  I must have been getting on her fuckin' nerves, too!

I pride myself on classroom management. I do it well for 7 periods each day. However, when it gets to be 8th period, it's a crapshoot. It's the end of the day and the kids in that class just will not shut up. This is a Regents level class and we have things we need to talk about each day to progress toward our ultimate goal of standardized test success in June. I feel that these kids might be able to pass the test, but they are not yet mature enough to show me that they can pass the test. They are making me question their readiness for this class. By the time a student gets to high school, I expect him or her to be familiar with manners and etiquette. I need to send all these children to charm school.

Here's my procedure with detention slips. I don't tell the kids about the detention until the end of class. I don't need to set them off at the beginning of class and ruin what could be a productive day of work. When I get them working independently, I quietly sneak off to my desk and write up the detention slip. At the end of class, I will ask the young offenders to stay for a quick chat. At that point, I ask for a parent or guardian phone number I can call and hand the slip to the student.

1. My first award, for tardiness and a lame excuse, goes to the young man who showed up late from gym when everyone else who came from gym made it on time to my class.

2. My second award, for utter unpreparedness, goes to the young man who strolled into class with absolutely nothing in his hands and immediately plopped his head down on his desk. I warned him in the hallway that he needed to get his things from his locker and he didn't listen. I kicked him out of class for his lack of materials. Not even a pencil on the boy!

3. My third award, for excessive talking and use of foul language, goes to the young man who likes to talk to people across the room and quietly hush curses at his neighbors. He seems to be the catalyst for derailing the class and it is my mission to make his year a painful one unless he changes his ways.

4. My fourth award, for mischievous behavior and disruption of my class, goes to the young lady who borrowed another student's glasses. I noticed she had glasses on when she walked in but thought nothing of it. Maybe she wore contacts before, maybe she got a new prescription. About 10 minutes into class, a boy strolls up to my room from another class, knocks on the door, and asks to see the girl with the glasses because the boy to whom the glasses belong requires the use of his glasses in his other class. When I wrote up her infraction, she failed to see the harm in disrupting my class or stealing glasses from a kid who is otherwise blind without them. I made some analogy to borrowing a wheelchair from a double amputee, but it fell on deaf ears.

5. My fifth award, for excessive talking and poor manners, goes to the young man who let forth a disgusting belch and disrupted my class. When I addressed the issue, he thought that it was okay to burp like that because he said "Excuse me." I asked him if it would be okay if I farted in his face and then said "Excuse me." He said it wouldn't be okay if I did that. I told him that it's not okay to burp in my classroom and that, as a 16 year old boy, one should have learned methods of discretion when passing gas by now and, barring discretion, he could hold it or excuse himself to the bathroom should the need to belch arise again.

6. My sixth and final award, for disrespect and failure to comply, goes to the winner of my first award who came late to class. When I gave him his detention slip, he didn't like it. He said he understood, but he didn't like it. When it came time to dismiss the class, he got up and left without following the proper procedure. I asked him to sit back down and try again, but he decided to throw his hands up and walk out. He won two prizes in one period!

I made my follow up phone calls, trying to drum up support at home. I talked to parents or left messages. I hope to see something positive come out of this slew of detention slips.