Sir Talks-a-lot and the Math Solution

Sir Talks-a-lot almost got recess taken away today. The reason? You guessed it: talking a lot.

Normally I don't like taking away recess. Normally it impugns my honor (which is normally unbesmirched). Normally it's needed so the students can run around and get their energy out so they can concentrate in class.

Today, however was a special case and it came at the request of my students.

See, what happened was one group of 3 students was working.

Sir Talks-a-lot and his squire, Math Wiz, were simultaneously getting their work done and taking to all the other groups.

This meant that no one was getting their work done unless I was right next to the individual group.

It was a rough day.

Later, when I was grading, I came across a note.

"This is not classwork," it said at the top next to my name. What followed was one paragraph describing the behaviors in class that made it hard to focus and another paragraph with a solution. Most of the students had signed it.

I laughed when I saw it. The solution they presented was that if someone was talking or out of seat they'd get one mark on their desk. After three marks their name would go on the board and they'd get recess taken away. If they worked hard for the rest of class they could earn recess back.

I talked it over with my math students the next day and we only added that if no one got recess taken away for a whole month, I'd buy them pizza. They all agreed to it.

So today, when Sir Talks-a-lot got 3 marks, he worked extra hard to be quiet and get his work done so the marks would go away. He got all of his work done and most of his homework done after that. Most of the class was able to finish their classwork as well. And that was really, really nice.