It is an odd quirk of my schedule that I have three of my worst classes on Wednesday. This is offset by having a shorter than normal schedule, but not by much.

I open with my worst “upper level” JHS 1 class. They’ve been loud all year, and it only got worse after they picked up students from the lower level after summer vacation. One student is especially obnoxious in a confrontational way and he leads a small pack of other students. Today, though, the pack were actually pretty good. It was other students who caused trouble.

After a break for an early lunch, I meet the contender for my worst class. They are also JHS 1s and are also confrontational. This attitude got a lost worse after the reorganization and there are times where I’ve had complete classroom collapse. Luckily, the class is right before lunch and, since I’ve already eaten, I just keep them around a while.

Today, however, they were pretty good as I plied them with a game of bingo that included stamps for early victors and scrawled versions of my initials after that.

Then I have real lunch break, during which I prep for the next day.

After real lunch, I have my worse HS 2 class. They are dominated by two American Football players who like to put on shows. The worst of the pair has been struggling the last few weeks as he’s been expected to do a solo project, rather than leech off the hard work of a partner. Because of this, he feels compelled to put on a show that involves no sitting in his assigned seat and making a joke of me telling him to get back in it.

I ignored him and started listening to other students do their speeches. He just played with his phone.

Luckily the day ends early on hump day.

Despite my best efforts to be the ant, this time of year I’m the grasshopper. Which is kind of why I used a version of that story in class today.

I start out strong and keep up with all my marking, but just as I had a tendency to finish most of my research papers in the 72 hours before they were due back at university, something about October makes me put off marking until a mad dash at the end.

It doesn’t help that I tend to keep student work until the end of the course. I realize that this keeps them wondering how well they are actually doing, but I also find that it makes them work a lot harder. My goal is to create neither panic nor pathos by keeping results a secret.

The problem is, my pathos at this system quickly turns to panic when the end of the term rolls around.

Although no one had a case of the Speech Day Influenza, it was not a smooth day of speeches.

My first period class (JHS 2/ US 8th grade) appeared ready to challenge my claim that I’d bring them in for lunch if they didn’t do their speech and/or have their item for their show-and-tell speech. One student seemed stuck in “look at me!” mode and kept trying to do his speech again and again. In fact, he may have set a record for speech performances. At one point, he refused to leave the podium, so I told the other student to go ahead and start. Then, after that failed, he let the student finish and then went up and started doing his speech.

However, I have 1) two daughters and 2) a wife who likes to argue with our oldest so extra noise is something that doesn’t phase me that much. After a bit of theater of the absurd where I was talking with one student whilst a second student was determined to do his speech again and again, the speech student finally settled down.

Final result: lots of zeros and a few lunch “dates” where students get to perform their speeches rather than eat their lunches.

My second period class had a similar result, although since there was no attention seeker, it was a lot quieter.

For third and sixth period I changed gears to high school second year (US 11th grade). They were supposed to present their original supervillains today, but I ended up getting only a few speeches. This will complicated all our lives starting in a couple weeks when they start their final projects and discover they have less time.

My attention-seeker in my last class likes to change desks and use his smartphone for “research” (translation: time wasting). Today he stubbornly refused to return to his assigned desk so I gave him a zero for the day. He said okay, which means 1) he didn’t hear me 2) doesn’t understand there will be consequences because I do such things for sport.

We’ll see what happens when it’s his turn on Wednesday. He sometimes surprises me, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The one thing I can always count on, whatever class I’m teaching, is that someone will be sick on speech day.

Today I had two students out with mysterious flu-like symptoms. (One, to his credit, eventually showed up even though he didn’t have his speech finished.) Another student left at lunch knowing she’d have to do her speech after lunch.

They will do them eventually (i.e. next week) but will have to do them a the beginning of class, not after lunch.

This happens more often in my high school classes at the school where I work. It happens enough that I’ve given it a Japanese name that translates as “Speech Day Influenza”.

The symptoms are sudden headaches that require trips to the nurses office; sudden stomachaches that require long trips to the toilet; or sudden disappearances before class that can’t be explained by friends.

There’s also a wave of memory loss that involves either forgetting the speech paper, which means it can no longer be studied for memorization, and the assumption that such forgetfulness constitutes immediate amnesty.

I expect that to happen tomorrow, too, as I have two classes that have yet to finish speeches. It might be the same as a plague zone.