If you can’t experiment on your students, there isn’t much fun in teaching.

Every now and then I have a class that has a lot of extra classes. Normally, if I have three classes, they tend to meet the same number of times. For example, Class One might meet 22 times, Class Two 22 times and Class Three 24 times. Class Three gets some extra English, which they don’t always appreciate, but a couple classes isn’t that difficult to manage.

However, once every few years the timing of holidays and school function days result in a larger difference in classes. For example, a couple years ago, I had a class that met 7 times during the winter term and another in the same grade that met 13 times. This meant the second class got almost twice as much English as the first class.

Because of that extra time, I decided to experiment on the longer class by having them make a TV commercial. They had to create a new product, a visual aid and a 60 second commercial. It was a bit of mad scientist experimentation but it turned out well enough that I ended up stealing the idea for higher grade a couple years later.

This year, in my first year high school class (US 10th grade) a couple of the classes are meeting four times more than the third class. I’ve therefore decided to put on my mad scientist hat and experiment on them.

This term, the plan is for them to make a two minute commercial advertising a lesser known prefecture (the Japanese version of a state). They have to research the prefecture and make a poster/advertisement for it.

The most fun happened at the beginning: after they formed pairs, each pair sent a student to draw a prefecture. When the first pair got a prefecture that isn’t very interesting there was a lot of excitement for every drawing after that. It was mostly interesting to see which prefectures where considered cool and which ones were considered horrible.

Unfortunately, that’s probably the end of the fun, but that’s part of the experiment.

One of my students today had a hard time finding a partner. He wandered around trying to find one and, because the class has an odd number of students, ended up by himself. When I finally assigned him a group, everyone laughed at the student who would be his partner.

I also may have made a mistake.

What’s odd about what happened today is that I had just explained that 1) this was a major project and 2) because it was major everyone needed to choose their partner carefully because 3) both partners would receive the same score. If one was good and one was bad, they’d both get the bad score.

What’s really odd is that the guy who couldn’t get a partner is one of my best students. Usually, it’s the bad students who can’t get partners and they end up in pairs with other bad students or made to participate in forced partnerships at my request/angry insistence.

This student is also a hard worker and it will be easy for his partners to be lazy whilst they only pretend to be busy. He also tends to dominate the speaking parts, which also makes it easier for his partners. Also, with three partners, each partner has less to memorize.

The rest of the class was unimpressed.

Part of the problem, and I realize this is ugly, is that the good student has an air of “kick me” about him. He is skinny and has slightly bushy hair and he reminds me of a fellow student who used to get bullied back in my Hayden, Colorado days. That student also gave off a “kick me” vibe that many people were more than happy to exploit.

I’m hoping that the problem really is that this student tends to volunteer to go first when I ask for volunteers. This usually produces angry reactions from his partners, even when I point out they get bonus points for going early.

My mistake, though, may have been choosing the pair at random and then letting randomness make the choice. The good student is now with one of my worst students–who 1) plays American style football; 2) happens to be almost as tall as I am and 3) is one of a handful of students I believe should never have been allowed into the high school. He’s never going to take the assignment seriously (he tends to try to improvise by putting on a comedy routine) and I’m afraid the last laugh will be on my good student.

In the end, I’ll probably have to let the good student work by himself and watch the other guy and his partner fail. That said, the third partner was absent today. I’ll have to see his reaction before I make any decisions.

There is an odd thing that happens to some students when they enter the mid point of their high school careers: The reasoning parts of their brains shutdown leaving in operation only the parts necessary to maintain basic physical functions.

This usually manifests itself as attitude and excuses.

Today, a student I’ve mentioned before (the one who gave me the “Penis Man” superhero) arrived to class five minutes late. He then put his head down and made ready to take a nap.

I went over and woke him up and reminded him of the rules: if you want to sleep, you may leave the classroom and go sleep. He then told me that the reason he wasn’t working was that he’d lost his paper. This, to the teenage mind, is a logical excuse. He lost the paper and therefore he now has free time.

I told him to get a notebook and copy the questions from someone else, as three other students had already done. I also reminded him he hadn’t done his superhero speech yet and should work on that. He said “okay” which is Japanese high school boy for “fuck you” and then did his best to try to sleep sitting up.

When I reminded him he needed to hurry because if he didn’t do the superhero and supervillain speeches he couldn’t do the final project (which requires the two characters) and then he’d fail the term and, almost certainly, they year.

He said in Japanese “I don’t understand English. Har har har.” Which is Japanese high school boy for “I don’t understand you which means you’re stupid. Har har har.” Again, to the teenage mind, this makes logical sense.

I told him it was too bad he’d lost his papers because he’d need them next year if I was in charge of the grade. He said “I don’t understand English. Har har har.”

I said “I know” and failed him for the day. He never did get a chance to sleep.

The big problem with coming back after Autumn break is that you’ve lost all rhythm to your work. The problem is made worse when you’ve had an October with lots of starts and stops. The problem is even worser when you’re only back for one day after a long break.

It’s as if your vacation has suddenly been interrupted by someone calling you back to work for an emergency.

I complicated it by  adding a new part-time job. This isn’t usually that big of a problem except this job has me walking in the door at 11:35 p.m. That left me feeling somewhere between “spritely” and “zombie” (with more slant toward zombie). I wasn’t that tired and I didn’t get cranky but I wasn’t 100%.

Luckily, neither were my students. They seemed surprised to be back (and they have class tomorrow) and were, at best 50%.

They got work done, but my last class, which featured a role play about the two partners meeting in 2035 for the first time in 20 years, was treated as optional by a few groups of students. I pointed out that it was not actually optional but it didn’t have my usual force, even when I suggested a couple students keep their textbooks because they’d need them next year when they repeated the class.

(Note: the school where I work will allow high school students to fail and force them to repeat the year or transfer to a new school.)

I quietly gave zeroes, which is unusual as zeroes usually arrive with force and noise, and I’m not sure the students who got zeroes fully appreciated that they were getting zeroes.

This means that next class about five pairs will have to perform their role plays or get zeroes for a second day in a row. I hope I can be louder next time, but we’ll see. The next class is on a Wednesday, which is the day after my part time job so I have my doubts about how high my energy level will be, at least until I get used to the new class rhythm.

Or, if things go horribly off kilter, I may only give zeroes for people who wake me up during class.

I hadn’t intended to write about this topic again, but my students made me do it.

In the same class where students got extra homework earlier this week, two of the same boys decided that sleep was more important than 1) listening to what I was saying and 2) doing the assignment I gave them. It’s as if my giving them homework and them completing it earlier this week somehow gave them a pass for any bad actions they did the rest of the week.

The funny part, and more proof of the Vortex of Suck, is that they put their heads down at the same time. After I woke them up, they had a glazed, zombie look in their eyes until I started to explain the assignment. At that point, they put their heads down and went to sleep. I stopped explaining the assignment, woke them up and gave them a choice: do the work or leave the room and go off and sleep together. (Something like that.) I also told them they should save their textbooks because they would most likely need them again next year.

They opted to “not sleep” which is different than “be awake”. They didn’t work and I had to warn their partners in Suck that they shouldn’t talk to them lest they face consequences again.

What surprised me was the attitude the pair expressed. They acted as if they were somehow smarter than I was and that somehow I wouldn’t chase them down and make them do work as I had just done earlier in the week. Perhaps because there is a short break coming up they were thinking that I might forget about them over the break. (Actual answer: teenagers.)

Next Friday I’ll see them again and we’ll find out if the attitude is still there. I’m pretty sure it will be which means my attitude will go to 9 or 10 (for the record: it goes to 11) and they’ll get extra work. They’ll also get new seats up by me.

It’s clear that there is a “vortex of suck” running through the school where I work. Luckily it only seems to exist in two rooms.

My four bad students all turned in their homework this morning, more or less on time, but they were replaced this afternoon by four different students who now have to do the same homework for the same reasons. I blame the place they sit for this. And maybe the time.

I was teaching the same part of the unit at the same time of day (last period) to a different set of students, but once again, four students were talking and not doing the work. What surprised me, and I pointed it out to them, was they were sitting in the same place as the other four students–the back four chairs of rows 3 and 4–one floor down.

I checked their books and noticed they hadn’t done anything. One wasn’t even on the correct pages. I told them they had three minutes to finish everything or they’d get home work. One student went “okay okay okay okay” in a way that meant “fuck that and fuck you” and got him a lot of laughs from other students. I said he should talk to the four boys who’d just turned in homework if he thought there wouldn’t be consequences and then dared him to say “okay” again. He didn’t.

However, although they made a very manly try, none of the four actually finished the work, even after I told everyone to check the answers at the back of the book. (At that point they could have just copied the answers.)

Instead they got the assignment to copy a page in the textbook and then translate it into Japanese. To a young man they played dumb, and I had to explain the difference between “finish everything now” and “I’m finished because that’s everything I feel like doing right now.”

I’m now wary of those seats in that place. I’l probably have to move the students and, since it’s a religious school, call in an exorcist. (For the room not the students.)

They thought I’d forget, and I’m sure they’d already forgotten. When they saw their names in big red letters, though, they started to remember.

Last week, as we were gearing up for the school festival, I mentioned how the students tended to be brain dead because school suddenly didn’t seem that important. One week ago, my last class of the day was in an especially brain dead mood and four guys at the back insisted, through constant chattering in Japanese, that they were no longer interested in my class

I called on them a few times and, after managing to finally get their attention, they couldn’t do the activity because they hadn’t actually done the activity.

At the end of class, I pulled them aside and explained their homework (copy every English word on the page into a notebook and then translate it all into Japanese). Two guys left as I spoke, one ignored me, and the one with the best English just smiled and nodded in a way that said “yeah, I get it, fuck that and fuck you.” I warned him that I’d bring them in at lunch and  after school every day until they finished if they didn’t do the homework. That got me another, as Stephen King might say, shit eating grin.

Because I had that class today, I created an announcement that featured their names in bold red letters at the top and described the homework at the bottom. (Note: I stole this “doom note” idea from a colleague). The last line was “If you forget…” and that was all. I posted the “doom note” on the blackboard in their homeroom during lunch and then went and did some other work.

When class time rolled around three of the four had the Japanese translation. Because I’ve been in a disturbingly good mood the last couple days (which still has me worried) I gave them until 8:15 a.m. tomorrow to complete the rest of the homework or I’ll start bringing them in at lunch to work on it. If they ask around, even in their own class, they’ll discover how many times I’ve done something like that.

If they don’t ask around and don’t do the work, well, at least I know what I’ll be doing for lunch.

Today was actually a pretty good day, which is odd for a Tuesday.

Today was the first full day back after the School Festival and that usually means the students are either brain dead, distracted or both. I therefore was expecting the worst.

Then, my first period class actually did the work I assigned them and did it quietly. Granted, my worst student wasn’t there as he has apparently taken my “You don’t have to be here” speech to heart and has decided not to attend class any more. I hope that’s not the case as I know he can do the work, he just chooses not to.

Surprised by that, I got ready for my worst class. As expected, they were pretty bad and the guy who had to stand up last week did nothing but project attitude and got to stand up again when he decided to sleep. However, in the end, everyone did the assignment. Granted, there was lots of cheating going on but in the end everyone come up front and did a speech. They even memorized their speeches and got bonus points. Mr. Attitude actually came up and did his speech.

At that point I was thoroughly freaked out and convinced that something bad was bound to happen. It had to. If my worst class was good, they had to be offset by someone else being bad. If not, the universe would spin off out of balance.

Luckily I had classes after lunch when the exhaustion and stress of being back would set in along with a rush of after lunch energy followed low blood sugar and that would trigger the bad things and help me be less freaked out.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. My fifth period class was noisy but good. Only a couple students tried to annoy me, but they didn’t try very hard.

Sixth period I did have some noisy students, but was able to get them to do work and, all in all, it was a good first day back.

I therefore headed home with a certain amount of dread. If the train didn’t crash it would mean that tomorrow would be terrible especially as I’ll have some bad students to deal with.

The train didn’t crash.