I guess it's not the worst problem to have. Serious behavior issues are yet to arise in my classes, knock on wood. It's mainly just been run-of-the-mill tardiness and typical teenage talkativeness issues. Plus, a dose of teen angst thrown in. But the year's been great overall for me so far.
However, my students have to learn to stop doing so much work!
Well, that seems strange at first glance. The reality is, students are losing sight of our school's standardized transitional times. This is when, for example, students are expected to pivot from fifteen minutes of Unison Reading into a large chunk of work time (either solo or interdependent). The other half of students already in work time then pivot into their Unison time. Near the very end of class--with six minutes to go in my classes--we all pivot to two minutes of putting away resources and then have four minutes for an individual student sharing with the entire class.
The problem now is getting students to put down work time materials to make those other pivots. We began emphasizing the importance of deadlines and college readiness and something must be sinking in. "Yeah!" for small victories because a fair amount of work is coming in each week. Some of our percentages are astronomical in comparison to students at other schools around the Bronx.
But that still leaves me with this new dilemma: Getting young adults to stop working so feverishly that they are late to Unison groups and are not taking the time to put away resources before a share. Also, how to round up those last few students for a share, as they write obsessively, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the rest of the class is now in the front of the room and a classmate is beginning to share a challenge, resolution, and goal with the class.
To my students: Keep on working...but also remember the transitions!
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