A day in the life of one of my students...

...would not be very fun right about now.

I asked the 6th grade teacher why her class was on silent lunch for the next 10 days. She said because they were chatty in class. I was like, "Wow, my class is way worse. I wonder if that could work."

Because I don't want to seem completely arbitrary and unfair, I told them that if anyone talked or was out of line on the way back to the classroom, our class would have silent lunch tomorrow. They didn't even make it out of the door of the cafeteria. I told them that the next sound would earn us all of next week. We made it silent and in line until we were almost to the classroom, but then we earned ourselves another week of it. One kid started talking back (he does that a lot), so I gave him his own personal two weeks after that. He kept saying, "I don't care! So? Add another one!" so I offered to extend his silent lunch to Christmas if he wanted (which, thankfully, isn't as far off as it sounds), and he literally stopped mid-breath. It was very funny.

A few of my "borderline" kids (as far as behavior goes) do not take these consequences very well, but I'm tired of putting up with mediocre behavior from the rest of the class because I want to overlook things to sometimes get mediocre behavior from a few "borderline" cases. So, we'll try to work through the few really bad attitudes, but in the long run, I think this will shape up a large number of kids in the class.

This means that the second step of my management plan - silent lunch - now means that you owe me 10 copies of the mission statement. And, just so you have more than my word to prove that it's long, I will type it out for your reading enjoyment (maybe you could even try writing it 10 times yourself to see what it's like living under Mr Clary's reign):

"The mission of Most Pure Heart of Mary School is to prepare students for leadership by providing a strong educational program which engages the student in the learning process, assists conscience formation based on Christian values in the Catholic tradition, and cultivates respect and responsibility."

Oh, by the way: for each student that talks either at lunch or in the line back from lunch, I'm adding a day to the silent lunch reign of terror. After next week, if they start having consistently silent lines, I will probably let them earn back days of the end if they can be quiet at the beginning of the school day. (Yeah, I know, I always end up being a softy at least a little.)