One was worse, the next one was bad, only one made me wish I had some sort of stun gun. Both are causing me problems.

Today I met two classes that hadn’t met, thanks to sports, for three weeks. The problem is, because of other holidays, they will only meet seven times this term whilst other classes will meet 11 or 12 times. Because of this, today, which was only their third class this term, was supposed to be their speech contest for my class. After that, we would move on to the textbook.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is their mid-term exams and because my class doesn’t have midterms, suddenly becomes unimportant to them. Also unfortunately, the topic is show-and-tell which means the students are supposed to have a “treasure” to show to the class.

Between the two classes, only four people out of 32 had their “treasures” and only four out of 32 actually practiced and memorized their speeches.

The first class was rowdy and thanks to my “if you’re noisy, you are next” rule, one student had to go up front three times (the record is four). About half way through the class I was ready to start using a stun gun but, alas, I have no such item readily available. Instead I’ll be giving them homework and watching them not do it later this term.

The second class was better behaved, but not actually better. I’ll have to do another speech class next week. After that, I’ll be meeting people during lunch time and after school.

Something tells me I’d better pack a lunch every day next week. But I’m cynical that way.