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.

One student sends me screen shots that are too small for me to read.

Another student sends me screen shots of the wrong page.

Yet another student sends me screen shots that show he didn’t finish.

Today, one sent me a screen shot of the page with the instruction that tells him what to do but which, alas, he didn’t do.

All of them are supposed to click on a link that emails the results to me.

Part of the requirements for the night class I’m teaching is that the students read several articles from an online source and then email the results. Unfortunately, because the website requires flash, they can’t do the assignment on their phones. This creates a lot of problems for them as they have to track down a regular computer.

Once there, they are supposed to follow the instructions, answer some questions, and follow more instructions. This is supposed to help prepare them for reading English instructions when they get to the USA and help them conduct online research.

This weekend, just for fun, I may send them to a different website. I can’t wait to see what happens then.

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.

A couple of my students misunderstood angles today and they probably had some ‘splainin to do.

I’ll probably have some, too.

My Friday afternoon classes include JHS 1 (US 7th grade) and a JHS 3 (US 9th grade). Today, a few of the JHS 1s decide to cause trouble.

All they had to do was rewrite a conversation, memorize it, and present it to me. One pair, though, decided that practice time was actually free time. I warned them a couple times they’d go first yet they acted surprised when I called them to the stage. (Note: each classroom has a short platform at the front that serves as a stage.)

As I expected, they not only couldn’t get past the first few sentences, they didn’t even know which parts they were playing.

I put them in the hall to practice. This made them nervous as their homeroom teacher teaches and English class directly across the hall at the same time and each room has large windows

. Although they tried to slip away from the spot I put them in, the angles from the other room allowed their homeroom teacher to see they were in the hall. He came to the window and watched them a few minutes whilst the rest of my class laughed at the punishment the boys in the hall were going to receive.

Eventually they did their role play.

Now, I’m figuring I’ll have to have a chat with their homeroom teacher…

It was such a nice day back after a three day weekend, that I feel compelled to write about it.

I started with my current worst class and was stunned when they remained quiet through a spelling test. Bad classes typically like to make strange grunts and other noises or like to make a show of either cheating or not caring.

After that they got through the assignment with little trouble. Of course, this is the third time I’ve taught this lesson so perhaps I’d finally figured out how to teach the lesson.

The next class were doing a different assignment, and although a few of them were bad, they mostly did the work.

My last class of the day were also pretty good, although they were doing a filler assignment because next week they won’t have class.

I left school feeling oddly positive because it’s rare to have all three classes be good. Then again, I’m pretty sure that’s never actually happened before.

Of course, this means the next day of classes will be a disaster, but that may just be my paranoia.