Can the American Catch Me?

My partner teachers seem to be very one minded; they are standing at the front of the room giving the lecture. They do not notice or choose to ignore the students who are not focused or playing with other items. I see it often, and I do not ignore this. When a cell phone is out, I make them put it in their pocket. If they are drawing, I take their picture. If they have another class’s textbook or homework, I tell them to put it away. Overall, I think I catch most actions.

I could tell the students were not used to being caught with their homework or cell phone (or whatever else they were doing in class) right away. For the first month, the students looked so shocked that I noticed they were texting in class or doing another class’s homework. They were not used to the teacher noticing. The funny thing is that they weren’t even trying to hide it. They would have their cell phone out and on their desk and were surprised I noticed.

Now that most of them know I am correcting the behavior, they try to be more discreet when doing something they are not supposed to. The key word here is ‘try’. The younger students might fold their arm and lay their head across their desk in a way that I can’t see what they are doing. But they are obviously doing something. And the older students hold their cell phones in their lap and pull the textbook close the edge of their desk so it looks like they are looking at their textbook. But obviously they are not completely focused on reading their English textbook (unfortunately), not to mention they are staring in their lap, not their desk.

The funny part of this is that many now almost make a game of it. They know I will catch them and tell them to put it away. So while they’re “being sneaky”, they stare at me until I catch them. Then when I see them, they innocently smile and pretend like they were behaving well the whole time. And many times, they wait until I stop looking at them and start again. Most days, I find this almost amusing.

Today was particularly funny. One of my 6th graders was drawing in class. After playing “can the American catch me” for several rounds, I took his paper. He no longer thought it was funny and started to pout. He then laid his head on the table and began to fake cry. And I mean fake cry like in cartoons; it was a rather pitiful attempt. I had to be really careful about not laughing at him because it really was quite humorous. It was even harder not to laugh because the rest of the students knew I had upset him. And they would look at him and then at me and laugh.

Anyways, as amusing as this all is, I really am hoping that I am teaching the students to focus on English when in English class. Constantly correct this behavior can be a little tedious, especially since I’m the only one doing it. But I’m hoping my partners will become more aware of the students’ behavior by watching me correct it, and eventually be correcting it themselves.