Spare the Rod . . . .

Classroom discipline problems certainly aren’t the same for every teacher or every school. At present, I am mad at one of my sophomore boys and have emailed his mother about his unacceptable behavior. The boy, who is very immature, is quite bright. He is probably capable of A work, but consistently earns C’s and D’s. His work is generally late, incomplete, or just missing and in class he needs constantly to be the center of attention, a real attention whore. He speaks out of turn, makes humorous (?) comments, and generally draws attention to himself. One day I am sure will jump up out of his seat, and wave his arms in the air yelling…”Look at me!, Look at me!” Before this happens I will probably drop him out of Honors Chemistry into a lower level; making him someone else’s problem.

The day after I emailed his mother I got a return message apologizing for him. She knows he is bright and disruptive and does not know what to do. She made him come to me and apologize for his behavior, at which time I told him I was going to demote him out of my class soon if his grade didn’t improve. I am waiting for his quarter exam grade to put the last nail in his coffin as it were.

Perhaps I am spoiled teaching in a private school. My good friend who teaches in the Chicago Public schools tells horror stories that would make you make you cringe. He has had his car fire-bombed in the faculty parking lot, has had a gang fight in the hall spill over into his classroom while teaching, and once found two students in the hall having sex. While it has never happened to him, he claims that there 2-3 assaults a month on teachers by students in the building. He probably wouldn’t even notice a chatty sophomore in his classroom.

Recently I read an article at “news-press.com” about a 9 year old girl who was arrested in a Florida school for attacking her teacher. The girl is in a special needs school and has been diagnosed with obsessive oppositional disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and schizophrenia.

On the day of the incident, the student had just returned to school after serving a suspension for assaulting another teacher who declined to press charges. Two hours after arriving at school, the police were called. The girl, reportedly, threw a chair at the teacher, threatened to stab her, knocked the phone out of her hand when the teacher tried to call for help, and kicked the teacher. She also attacked the officer when he attempted to restrain her. I should be happy that my little criminal is only a pain in the ass and not violently insane.

Different Day--Same Crap.

My friend in the Theology Department reminded me that I haven’t posted anything is several weeks. I have been very busy; first with the 50th anniversary celebration for our school, and then with grading papers that had piled up on me. It is Saturday Afternoon and I have some time so I thought I would write down my thoughts.

Several weeks ago I changed the program that keeps track of the visitors to the blog. There have been about 271 visitors the last few weeks and the tracking information shows some interesting things. I have had visitors from all over the United States, as well as Israel, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Japan. The tracking information does not tell me who they are, but does tell me where they were referred from.


Monday I am scheduled to be observed by one of the assistant principals. I am scheduled this year for a “formal” evaluation. The administrator chosen for this task did my last evaluation and I passed with flying colors.

Weapons of Math Instruction

The link below is to an article posted at “thestate.com” concerning a 10 year old boy who was suspended for having a weapon on school property. The weapon was a broken pencil sharpener.

http://www.thestate.com/breaking/story/521009.html From this link you can access the original article as well as a copy of the police report describing the incident.

As the article states, the pencil sharpener was the type many school children carry in their supply boxes. The problem was that the sharpener was broken. The article goes on to say that a teacher at his school saw the boy with what seemed to be a small razor blade, and reported it to the assistant principal. The sheriff’s police were called and the boy was, apparently, taken into custody.

The article also contains a copy of a letter sent home to parents by the school after the incident, explaining what happened and assuring the parents that their children are safe when at school. This letter goes on to suggest that some of the assertions made in the article were incorrect, including that the pencil sharpener accidently broke in school. Other inaccuracies could not be challenged for reasons of “student confidentiality”, according to the letter.

Give me a break! The letter by the school is an obvious attempt to cover their ass after making the incredibly stupid decision to report this to the police, and then being subjected to media scrutiny that makes them look justifiably foolish. The police report is most amusing in contrast to the gross over-reaction by the school administration. Unless the student in question had been a problem in the past, the reaction of the school was worse than excessive, it was incompetent. The article, as well as the police report, implies that the student was so upset he was crying at the meeting with the adminisrator and the police The boy was suspended for two days.

The police report concludes that the student meant no harm and only intended to use the “blade” to sharpen his pencil. The school is unconvinced, stating that they are keeping the weapon pending a hearing to see if any further actions need to be taken.

Has common sense been completely flushed down the crapper? Are schools so afraid of being accused of doing something wrong that no one can make a rational decision anymore? Has it come to the point where rules and regulations are so restrictive that an administrator has no choice but to treat petty problem this way?

The First Week

The first full week of school is over and we are all, both students and teachers, grateful for the three day Labor Day weekend. Except for the oppressive heat and humidity common to this time of year, things went well.

My first year chemistry students seem interested in the work, especially the new activity I developed on the scientific method. I found a set of empty boxes that once contained greeting cards, placed a D-cell battery in each, and used duct tape to seal them.
Part one of the activity involved determining what was in the box, without opening it of course. The students shook, turned, and listened to the box as they argued with each other about the contents. Each group had to turn in a written report with their observations and hypothesis; the oldest member of the group assigned to be its leader.

In Part two they made a “Cartesian diver” out of an empty plastic bottle, small test tube, and some tap water. Their written report had to include an explanation of how it works. I posted the answer to each “scientific problem” on a new web page I set up for my classes at blogspot.com. I wanted to get them used to looking there for class information so I exploited their natural desire to know what was in the box by not telling them, but letting them know that they could find the information there. I also posted a link to their homework assignments and files of their handouts that could be downloaded if necessary.
Several students who lost the original handouts this week downloaded copies at home. The explanation for the Cartesian diver activity was a U-tube video about how to make one. There is a playlist music box as well, along with links to webelements.com , and homework help web sites. I plan to add more links as the year progresses, building the page into a major resource for my classes.

The A.P. Chemistry class took its “summer homework test” Tuesday and Wednesday. The grades were acceptable, but I had hoped for better. It is obvious to me that some extra review will be necessary. After the summer homework test one student dropped, and I recommended that another two do the same.

One student, a young lady who got a 53% (the worst grade in the class) on the test, sent me the email below:

“im worried about the grade i received on the summer homework test. do you have any suggestions on what i should do?”

My reply was:

“Your grade was significantly lower than the average in the class. I noticed that you had problems on several different topics--especially those that were not covered in Chemistry A. The purpose of the summer homework was to emphasize those skills that are necessary to master before beginning AP Chemistry. For Honors Chemistry students this was review material, but for those who took Chemistry A, about 1/3 of it was new material. Students who took Chemistry A needed to spend extensive time over the summer mastering these necessary skills.

If you did spend extensive time this summer and still did not master the necessary skills I would recommend dropping AP Chemistry now. On the other hand, if you did not study this summer as you should have, you may still be able to get up to speed, but it will take weeks of intensive review and work over and above the normally assigned class work.

Your records indicate you are a very good student who qualified for Honors Chem, and if she had taken Honors Chemistry would have easily mastered the necessary work. But you took Chemistry A instead of Honors, and took a year off between Chemistry A and AP Chem, neither of which is recommended for success in AP Chemistry.

You are the only one who knows your motivation and determination to catch up. I will not press the matter one way or the other, and will support you whether or not you decide to drop. If you decide to stay you will need about 2 hours a week of intensive review that I will gladly help you with. You need to think about these things, maybe discuss it with your parents and/or guidance counselor before you decide.”

Now I will wait to see what happens.