Tuesday, October 21, 2008

There's Hope for the Future

I spend some time as a substitute teacher at some local schools. One is a Middle School. The kids are cute and the school is very structured and supportive. They must walk down the halls on the right side and must be in class on time or there is "Heck" to pay.

One day in the cafeteria I had an eye-opening experience. I was on cafe duty and near the end of the session an assistant principal took the microphone as an eerie quiet took over the room of about 150 kids. The administrator told them that they would be dismissed in silence and if there was any talking they would receive strike one, two, or three for as many times as anyone was caught speaking.

I was amazed at the response. You could hear the proverbial pin drop. Each table was dismissed separately and just before dismissal the students checked on and under their tables for trash. Then they were allowed to go in silence.

Perhaps there's hope for the future with caring and structured schools like this for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders! Could this be a model for other areas?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, that is nice to hear that some schools have real control and expect good behavior.

David Ettlin said...

Clearly not the middle school where my wife formerly taught, or the Baltimore City middle school (alma mater Pimlico!) where we spoke on a career day two years ago -- or tried to. The classes were pretty much an exercise in chaos.