Look guys, Mrs. Marshall tried to be cool, and not lock the gate, but too many people took advantage of her good will. You forced her to lock the gate, which she probably should have been doing in the first place anyway.
Gipp- What do you do when your students come in baked after lunch? Call them out? Ignore it? Refer them to the principle? Maybe have a one on one talk about how their behavior impacts the learning environment? If they skate do they get more or less slack?
I feel like you could be the raddest teacher ever or like the biggest asshole know-it all type.
It depends on the situation and the circumstances in the school. A few years back the school policy was "any kid who gets caught under the influence is referred to the police, searched, and arrested if found with anything," that year, I basically just ignored it all together and pled ignorance.
Usually I'll give a lot of clues that a kid isn't getting away with it to try to clue them into the fact that they are blowing it. "Why does it smell like a skunk in here?" "Dude, why do you smell like cheap cigars?," "What's wrong with your eyes? Why are they so blood shot? Is it pink eye?" they always answer "maybe" then my response is "shoot, that's really contagious, maybe we should send you down to the office and send you home?" they never want that, and I respond "well, if the pink eye continues tomorrow I'm going to have to send you down there because I don't want to be infected."
Generally if they don't listen, I'll just call their parents, tell them their kid appears to be under the influence, explain how that kind of behavior can lead to them falling into the school-to-prison pipeline in some other classes, and how it genuinely does affect their ability to learn.
The only time I've ever been a dick about it was when a kid tried to smoke a blunt in class. I was cycling around helping kids, so I didn't see who did it, but I had to protect my ass- "Mr. [Gipper] let kids smoke weed in his class" is something they say right before they would fire me. At that point I just called the office, had the kids searched, and that kid who did it got suspended for like a month, but I insisted no arrest even though that was a suggestion.
The reality is, coming to school stoned, while not deadly or a danger to others, genuinely inhibits a kid's ability to learn, so I try to make sure its not a free for all, but simultaneously do what I can to intervene without any of those life runing kind of consequences. Its a thin line to walk for sure, but I can't just let it go, and I can't send kids who generally have bigger problems if they are coming to school obviously high as fuck at 8 am to jail or into the system in other ways.
Not sure if that makes me cool or a kook, but that's the approach.
Kids who skate don't get more or less slack, but its easier to build the kind of relationships that aren't about that when they skate. Its about humanizing yourself and your students, and building connections like that can do just that. Kids who have a good relationship with their teachers will usually listen when given a reasonable request, so it tends not to come down to consequences or anything like that. Its more like "Did you see the new GX video? Sean Greene is the gnarliest! By the way, remember that work I asked you to get into me, how's that coming along?"
My biggest flaw is I actually do know a ton about the subjects I teach (government and U.S. history) so the only "know it all" trouble I get relates back to my ADD and fascination with the subject. All a kid has to do is be like "Is Kanye right that black people could have freed themselves from slavery?" and suddenly the class becomes all about the Nat Turner rebellion and the Haitian revolution because I know about it and want to feed their curiousity and clarify misconceptions. On a related note, fuck all that bullshit Kanye has been saying lately and the genuine fucked up effects it has. The dude lost his mind, and I hope his condition improves, but in the meantime, dude needs to shut the fuck up until he gets his mind back.
Topic: Why does Mrs. Marshall lock the gate? (Read 3792 times)