This song is dedicated to my flash drive, which went missing somewhere between 5th and 6th period yesterday. I was missing it, so much so that I would end up punishing all my classes until I got it back.
In my quest to find it, I sought out the punishment of all periods today to give them the message that I meant business.
Period 1 was not quiet during the video, so I made them take down 20 facts about it quietly. I was relatively calm still at this point, but angry.
Period 3 could not be quiet during a video, and so when suggested they take down 50 facts about the video, they moaned. I blew up and forced them to do questions straight out the textbook instead. Nobody dared talk.
Period 4 was quiet during the video after I yelled at them to take notes when they got up out of their seats unnecessarily. One student reported to me he saw another student named Tywan carrying it. I found Tywan who just so happened to be in the hallway and asked him if he had my flash drive. He said “his mom gave it to him” and he did not take mine.
I forced Period 5 to all write statements identifying who they believed to be the culprit of the theft. It all pointed to various different people. Afterwards they had to do a thick packet of 50 pages as punishment. Before Period 6 started, Mison, a student who misbehaved last semester in my class but was no longer my student reported to me he heard Tywan talking about the flash drive.
Period 6 had to do the entire thick packet of 50 pages as well. After looking at Tywan who in my class, I grew suspicious of his answer and called his mom in front of the entire class. It was dead silent. She told me she never gave him a flash drive. She told me she would drive home immediately and look for it. She told me I had permission to look through his backpack. I sent Tywan with another kid to get his backpack and began looking at it in front of the entire class. Everyone, including myself, was shocked when I found it in there, in the sides of the backpack. I pressed the “call” button immediately and sent Tywan straight to the Dean’s Office. All he got? RPC. I was hoping for a suspension.
If today taught me anything, it’s that I can’t trust these kids. It also taught me being the “mean” or tough teacher is better in the long run, because at least the kids are quiet. I won’t ever let an incident like this happen again, and if I learned anything my first year of teaching, it’s that I can’t be too nice to these students, or they take advantage of it. I am now prepared to use bookwork and worksheets as punishments if kids start acting up in class. And it will work. Guaranteed.
Thank goodness you’re back. The pieces of my heart was missing the pieces of my USB.
In other news, my soccer team tied 2-2 today.
When you’re gone
The pieces of my heart are missin’ you
When you’re gone
The face I came to know is missin’, too
When you’re gone
The words I need to hear
To always get me through the day
And make it okay
I miss you
