Playing baseball in class. 3 strikes and you are out!

This is my new classroom management strategy for my geography classes. 3 strikes and you are out the door to  OCR. After a few rough days of trying to compel my two freshmen geography classes to display some level of respect for others when they are talking my C.T and I came up with the baseball game as we call it. I have a seating chart transparency on the overhead and when things become to rowdy, instead of raising my voice I simply turn on the overhead. This is the classes warning that they need to be quite and get back to work or show more respect for whom ever is talking. If they don't, I then start handing out strikes to students that interrupt, say things not related to the topic, or are just simply being rude. As I said earlier, this is a freshman geography class, the sad thing is that the most disruptive students are 10th and 11th graders. My CT has said time and again, this is the most challenging class he can remember; he has been teaching for 30 years so that either says they are really challenging or he has forgotten some that were harder. Either way, these two classes, especially 5th period are really putting me to the test as far as classroom management. For me, I look at as a real opportunity to learn. I had two students on Friday ask me if I really want to be a teacher, and why would I after having to deal with their classmates. I told them that part of my job is not just teaching content material, but also teaching certain students how to be better students and how to learn and that this class was giving me a real opportunity to practice that. They looked at me like I was from Mars and said I should just kick them all out of class because if they are not going to listen to Craven, my CT, they sure are not going to listen to me. In reality only time will tell so I will just keep trying to teach them content and how to be good students.

Lastly, I had a student in 5th period, my toughest class, ask me last week why I always dress like a "closet pimp". My first response was to ask him what that means and he said he thought that I dressed really nice all the time. A few of his classmates chimed in and said I was easily the best dressed teacher on campus. I thanked them and continued to hand out some papers. However, the first student said to me, "You didn't answer me. Why do you dress like that when nobody else does?" So I went "Gooch" on them, although I was very sincere and meant what I said. (Many of you will know what I mean by that, some will be left wondering and I think that is funny.) I told them that teaching is a profession that requires me to interact with important people, them, everyday and that I have been taught that if you are meeting with people of importance you should dress like they are important. I almost got a standing ovation. One girl said something to the effect of that being the coolest thing she has ever heard a teacher say. What will the net effect of this, I don't know. But it certainly cannot hurt for my students to know that I take my job seriously and I take my time with them and their learning just as serious.