Trying To Make Your Problem My Problem Won't Solve Your Problem

So we're doing this thing during the last 8 weeks of school. Every Friday during third period (the last period we teach our students before we have planning period) we have been either watching a movie or going to the gym or something. We decide during lunch who is going to get to go. If a teacher takes you off the list, you have to stay behind and sit in a classroom and do work.

This is what I don't get: some of these teachers don't want to take responsibility for taking a kid off the activity. All the kids will get upset (obviously) and want to know who took them off. The other teachers will say, "we decided as a team." No, we didn't. I won't disagree with somebody for taking a particular child off the list, but if that child isn't a problem for me, why would I tell them I took them off? Now, the kids I do take off, I will go up to them beforehand and say something like, "Hey, Cortez, remember on Tuesday when you did no work and wouldn't stop cursing? Well, think about that and think about MISS VINSON while you're sitting in that detention room. Maybe next time you'll remember to take care of your business instead of acting like a clown."

The difference is, I'll take off about 5 kids, and the math teacher will take off like 40 kids. If you are having a problem with allllll these kids--kids that cause me no trouble--shouldn't you have something to do with their punishment? Maybe that's why you have management problems, because you are relying on others to do your discipline.

So this week, another teacher and I took the good kids to the gym to play basketball and jump rope and just hang out. When we came back, the language arts teacher told me that she thinks I need to stay behind with the disruptive kids because I have more control over them than the math teacher does.

This is fine. I'm a team player. But I don't see how this will help her with her discipline issues. But I notice, when we're making the list, the math teacher will just generalize certain students. Can Devin go? No, he's "bad." Whereas I say, "Devontay can't go because he has missed my class 3 times in two weeks." If she has just decided particular children are "bad," no wonder they act crazy.

And another thing, they WANT to come in my class. So, how, exactly, are we punishing them? Of course they don't get to go to gym, but they get to spend extra time in Miss Vinson's class, which is someplace they want to be.

And ANOTHER thing, if you are having problems out of more than half your students, maybe it's time to sit back and reflect on yourself. There are certain kids that I can't STAND but they do incredibly well in science or language arts or whatever. But if HALF OF THE SEVENTH GRADE is a problem for you...I don't think I can help you, and no matter how many times they aren't allowed to go to Fun Friday, nothing is going to change.