Adventures in Teaching

I really enjoy teaching and over the past few days I've had some thoughts rolling through my head. First off is bribing really THAT bad? I have two classes: both of which are very loud and hard to keep quiet. One I like, we have a good raport in that class. The other one...well...I like about 5 kids in that class. No matter what I seem to do with them, that will not stay quiet. Even after a test, they immediately start talking with the person nearest to them that has finished. Annoying right? Well, I do a ticket system with my kids. They're good, they earn tickets and I do a weekly drawing for various prizes. Well, the class that I enjoy has lost ALL candy privledges because of candy wrappers being left on the floor. So yesterday I tell the kids "If you guys can finish your study guides by the end of the period, I'll let you have your choice of a ticket or a Jolly Rancher."

A nice young man followed up by saying "But we're not allowed to have candy" (immediately followed by "shhh!!!").

I reply "I know, that is how bad I want you to finish these study guides, so I'll make this ONE exception" Yep it was dead quiet the rest of the period. It basically went the same way in my other loud period, except they haven't lost candy priviledges.

Lesson #2. Well, this is more of a thought. During the study guide making time, I was passing back some work and I smelled it. The smell of starting puberty and the smell that never really leaves us for the rest of our lives: B.O. I about gagged. One of the worst I've smelled in a long time. My first thought was poor kids that have to smell that; that quickly changed to poor young student who needs to be told about the glorious invention of deodorant before he/she is teased for the rest of his/her school career! I tried to identify the culprit of this awful smell. But I could not pin it down. I have it narrowed down to a few, but my biggest guess is a young lady. But there's no way that smell could come from girl, it's just too bad. I didn't smell it today. Maybe she does use deodorant and forgot yesterday. But either way, it's a sad situation.