Well, that didn’t take long.
Despite making a vow (non-binding) to take June more easily than usual, I’ve already thrown a student out of class. In my defense, I almost threw two out but didn’t.
Until sixth period everything was going well. Then one of my worst students arrived a couple minutes late and, despite the fact I was talking, proceeded to talk to other students rather than sit down. I walked him back to the door and told him he could go and then berated him all the way back to his chair when he decided he’d sit down.
Five minutes later (that’s seven minutes late if you’re keeping score) that student’s partner in crime arrived. I told him he needed to get a late slip “His reaction was really? Fuck.” I sent him out and told him he didn’t need to come back.
This entertained the first late student which led to a few minutes of random confrontation (one that, quite frankly, has been building for a long time). His favorite annoying technique is to go full toddler and keep asking “why” when I tell him to do something.
This time, after the second “why” I repeated myself and dared him to say “why” again. There was apparently something in my tone of voice or enough “soulless-just-plain-crazy” in my eye that he didn’t talk. In fact, after a few minutes he was pouting quietly.
This led to the next problem. After I explained the final project, which will take most of June to finish and involves visual aids and video cameras and how anyone who didn’t do it would fail, he and his partner asked if they could use their smartphones for “research.” As I suspected, the “research” took all class and they never wrote anything. I’m guessing the fact they chose the guy I’d thrown out as their third partner left them feeling exempted from having to do any work.
In the end, though, they’ll have to do something. If they don’t, all three fail and will have to take a make-up exam. If they don’t improve next class (I’ll roll back the anger for that one, in theory) I’ll give the better of the three a chance to change groups and leave the two bad students on their own.
They may be the kind who try to call my bluff though. That’s when the fun starts.