I’m not really the kind of teacher who expects it to be silent in class. In fact, if students aren’t talking to me and to each other, I think things are a little boring (I don’t know how Lauren talks to 4 year olds all day).
But my math class has honed to a fine art the ability to distract each other with a single well placed word. So I eventually end up saying, “No talking.” Sometimes “No Talking” is accompanied by “Starts in 15 seconds, so get it out of your system.” and sometimes it’s accompanied by “One freebie.”
But if you talk under the no talking flag (assuming that I actually notice) then you have to spend a minute after school with me for each time you talked. Normally I end up with 1 or 2 students after school. Today I had a quartet. They have to stand near my desk and look properly penitential for the minute, but today I said, “If you don’t want to just stand there, you could sing.”
One of them started singing this song and immediately the other three joined in.
I was suitably impressed.