I love giving my classes book work to do and then pretend that I am engrossed in doing something else and then watch them from the corner of my eye. Then, without warning, I will look over to two students who are talking but only one of them can directly see me and they say to the other one:
"DANGER, DANGER, DANGER!!!! He is looking at us right now so you better try and cover your tracks the best way you can...sorry but you are on your own as I am going to pretend like I was working all along and just hope he is as dumb as we think he is and will not notice that I was indeed talking. And again, I am sorry but if he mentions anything about us not working I am going to quickly throw you under the bus and say that you were the one talking to me but I definitely was not talking to you - GOOD LUCK!"All of this is said non-verbally by a simple glance, the darting of the eyes, a slight flinch, a twitch of an eye brow or any other very, very subtle form of communication. And the really cool thing is that the other student clearly understands what is said and they then scramble to look like they were not turned away talking but rather picking up a piece of paper or some other innocent activitity.
Teenagers are a riot!! If you cannot laugh doing this job, you just have no business being a teacher because this is funny stuff!!!
My fellow teachers, what are some of the non-verbals that you see in your classes?
10 comments:
Teenagers are funny. When I was subbing last week, I saw a student copying another's paper. When I walked over, he carefully placed his paper on top thinking I wouldn't notice. One of my favorite things to do is stand or sit in the back of the class. The ones who are up to something will turn around to see where I am.
They are just so naive in telegraphing exactly what they are thinking or doing. Attempting to text in my class - which has only happened a couple times - is one of the most amusing. They just don't realize how obvious they are.
That doesn't even get at how obvious they are in what they say. It still amazes me what they will talk about - rather loudly - in the hallway or before class. Later, they're shocked by what their teachers know about them.
Oh Betty that is soooo true!!! I love to stand in the back of the room during tests and watch to see who is more concerned in where I am standing instead of what is actually on the test.
And Mazenko, a lot of times I am truly, truly impressed with the text-messaging skills of these students. They know how to send detailed responses on their phones while it is still in their backpack or even behind their back without ever looking at the screen!
Knowing my students and their behaviors, I have no doubt that they will start talking as soon as I walk out into the hall. I also had to wear an amplification device to help my students with hearing difficulties. When I walked out in the hall to talk to another teacher, I hit my talk button on my microphone and told my students to stop talking so loudly and please whisper until I come back in. Since the speaker is in front of my classroom, the whole class immediately got quiet and wondered how I knew they were talking! It was great!
Thanks for the hilarity. I teach third grade and this happens ALL. The. Time. I didn't think teenagers would be so quick to throw each other under the bus. Good to know that even in high school, kids fear embarrassment from their teachers enough to sell out their best friends.
The sudden look of shock and surprise, their mouth open in a silent howl and eyes wide open when they realize you caught them at something. Then, there are the looks of amusement of their classmates who knew the culpret was (shooting spitwads) (grafitting the desk/book) (lost in space) (annoying the person in front of them in some manner) (other).
I love the eyeroll towards a student that is causing trouble. It says, "Hey lady you might want to look over there, but I ain't one to talk."
'Strausser' it's really funny that you know all this. And I've gotten that look from you a couple of times that says 'I know what your doing so change it.' Only the way you give it's funny at the same time. Anyways I stumbled across this a few days ago (I spend too much time on google). It's really cool to see how your mind works.
- Your student.