John Paquay wrote, on Thu, 30 Oct 2014 04:51:58 -0400:
She's brand new to teaching, but, it turns out that classroom management is a standard problem in these multi-ethnic San Jose schools.
One teacher uses a bathroom plunger, as his bathroom pass.
What it (attempts to) accomplish is the reduce undue interruptions of the classroom environment.
We all know that the kids can go to the bathroom plenty of other times, but, all kids will take advantage of a "free pass" out of jail, if even for only 10 minutes (which they can synchronize with other friends, if they're clever).
What the pass does, first and foremost, is it discourages such intents. Also, it allows the teacher to continue teaching, uninterrupted, as the students just get up, grab the pass, and return, unannounced.
It also is very clear to everyone, what the purpose of the kid is, whether grabbing the pass or walking the hallways. It's also not something they can leave hidden in the hallway while they surreptitiously run a'muck about the hallways or outdoors to catch a smoke or whatever.
Likewise, it prevents multiple kids (from the same classroom anyway) leaving the room at any one time.
Furthermore, it's obvious to all whether the bathroom pass is in use or not. It's like the red sign on an airplane bathroom door showing it's in use, rather than what we have to do at a McDonalds, which is to jiggle the doorknob repeatedly to find out if someone is in there.
And, being so large (on purpose), the kids, who almost certainly don't like it, can't lose it easily.
At the very least, it's objectionable to carry (as you noted), which would further discourage the unnecessary potty breaks.
Rest assured, this teacher has at least one kid a day out of her 200, walk out on the class without excuse. She has kids banging on the table, and calling her a b*ch, and plenty of disciplinary problems, all of which are common through all the classes, as she told me most of these kids are being weeded out of the system through their behavior in *all* their classes.
I also find this behavior strange, as *my* kids have always had comments on their report cards of "very polite", "always helpful", "pitches in to volunteer every time I ask", and even once "raises hand to answer questions too often!".
Heh heh ... the apple doesn't fall far from the tree ...
I think this teacher, who is brand new, is learning on the job. In California, they go through 3 semesters of graduate training, to obtain a preliminary teaching certificate, two semesters of which have on-the-job training of sorts.
Then, they're thrown to the wolves for 2 more years, until they get their preliminary teaching certificate cleared. At that point, they also get tenure (which is kind'a soon, if you ask me), and then they're bona-fide teachers.
The clearance process, apparently, starts with three weeks of training on "classroom management", which I found odd when I saw that it's the
*first* thing they re-train the preliminary-credentialed teachers on.Out of 200 kids that she has, she estimated, to me, that about 10% are the ones using the bathroom pass constantly. The rest sit and listen.
You have to remember these are Algebra classes, where probably only a small percentage of the kids (maybe 1/3?) actually care to learn it. It's a required class for the rest, which they hope to never see again during the rest of their lives.
When is the last time you or I graphed a quadratic equation, for example? Could each of us solve a binomial equation to save our lives? (Building suspension bridges in the redwoods notwithstanding... :)