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Nothing is black and white in my class
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Computers In The Classroom, Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, motivating students, positive climate, Special Education, The way I see it, underachieving students, Web 2.0 tools and technologies
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“This is the best assignment ever,” Tom told me enthusiastically. Then, he asked
“Can I text message Chris to tell him to get out of bed and come to class? I’ll go over and do it in the corner so you won’t see me do it.”
Let me give you a little background here. First, Tom and Chris (not real names) are best friends and like working together in my class. They tell me they like my class because of all the cool (Web 2.0) things we do in it. In fact, they wished more classes were like mine. Unfortunately, Chris doesn’t always make it to my class, especially on Day 2 when this class is in first period. (We have a two day cycle where periods one and five flip every other day.) Chris tells me he can’t get out of bed in the morning. We’ve talked about this and the possible consequences,(I call them hassles) but Chris assures me that he’s been suspended before. He doesn’t mind it because then he gets to stay home. The smile on his face tells me he sees the irony in this.
Secondly, using cell phones in school is against school rules, and if a teacher so much as sees a student with a cell phone anywhere in the building, the teacher is to take the student to the office. The VP will call home and then confiscate the phone for a given period of time. Thank goodness, teachers aren’t expected to confiscate the phones from students any more. In the past, I’ve has some nasty run-ins with students about cell phones, but that was before the administration decided they would do the confiscating.
Here’s my dilemma. I have a student who is academically at-risk and is so excited about an assignment in my class that he wants to text message his friend and tell him to get out of bed and come to class so they can work together on this assignment. Then, there’s the school rule against kids using cell phones any where in the school. (I guess any where includes my classroom.)
What should I have done? Nothing is black and white when you’re teaching “at-risk” kids. At least, that’s the way I see it after all these years.
Oh, Chris did get out of bed and come to class because Tom sent him the text message. He even apologized for being late. He’s excited about the assignment, too.
The assignment? I almost forgot to tell you. We’re starting to study “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teen s”. The students will work in groups and present each of the 7 habits to the other members of the class. I thought it would be useful to review presentation skills before they actually did that, but when I went on line I wasn’t able to find a video illustrating presentation skills that was for teenagers by teenagers so I asked the kids to create one. If you know of one, please tell me.
I told my students I knew they could do it, and you know they are doing it. I asked the class if anyone had taken drama or media classes and have an idea of what we need to do. Some students raised their hands. I told them they would be our experts and teach us what to do. I’m learning so much about things like scripts, story boards and camera angles. A couple of students are even going to mix video with Flash- whatever that means. My little Ultra Flip is going to be so happy next week, and I’m going to learn so much.
I wonder if anyone wants to use his cell phone to create the video. 
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I absolutely hate that no cell phone rule. I ignore it. My kids can use their cell phones, their iPods, their laptops, and any other gizmo in my class when I am not instructing. If an administrator walks in and sees the kids doing this, I just explain that it is part of the workplace and have the student tell the administrator how they are using the device to better their learning. My kids are pretty good at this as they appreciate being treated as an adult who can make choices in their workplace.