I will be the first to admit that there are probably no teacher of the year awards coming my way any time soon. When someone misbehaves in my class - especially when they are repeat offenders - my tendency is to teach them a lesson rather than directly address the behavior. For example, I have a student who has a habit of leaving old homework assignments and notes and other papers all over my classroom. I've talked to him before about this and asked him to clean up after himself, but over the course of three days this week, he managed to leave 12 papers wadded up around my classroom. Since that particular class has a seating chart and I know exactly where he will be sitting each and every day, AND I have a planning period right before that class comes, I took those 12 papers and cut every single one of them up in to a zillion tiny pieces and sprinkled them all over his desk with a note reading, "Please clean up your mess". When he came to class, it looked like a snowstorm had hit his desk. And he wasn't allowed to leave the room until every tiny scrap was in the garbage can. He hasn't left a paper in the room since then.
Another example would from Tuesday when I gave a test to the 9th graders, and more than half of them turned in a test so full of scribbles that I could hardly grade some of them. I thought we were beyond that. They all own erasers, but they insist on not using them. So I graded their tests, wrote their grades at the top, then scribbled them out. Then when they asked me what their grade was, I replied, "Hmm... Wow, it's tough to see, huh? I guess I should have erased my scribbles there. You might have been able to read it then."
Or yesterday. Geometry was reviewing for a test they have later on today. I gave them ample practice problems and a study guide for the chapter, and most of them were working quite diligently. Except one boy who fell fast asleep. Like into a deep sleep. Some of his friends thought it would be humorous to draw "tattoos" on his arms that consisted of my name inside of a heart. While I am a big fan of the keep-your-hands-to-yourself policy, I make exceptions from time to time. And if you are going to sleep that deeply during a test review, I have absolutely no problem with letting Sharpie tattoos be the consequence. I was about to drop a math textbook on his desk when I realized that he was leaning forward in such a way that caused his jeans to gap in the back leaving a nice space for many a thing to "fall" into (thankfully he was wearing boxers underneath). Realizing the prime opportunity that fate had just handed me, I proceeded to pass office supplies out to a few of his friends and motioned for them to drop them down the back of his pants. They managed to get 3 paperclips down before their stifled giggles woke him up. By that point, about half the class was watching, and he was a little panicked because he didn't know WHY everyone was giggling and looking at him. He was convinced that someone had drawn something on his face, and he kept trying to wipe it off, which just made everyone laugh harder.
Kids on the far side of the room who hadn't seen what happened knew something was up, and they started asking around to try and get the scoop. Nobody wanted the newly awakened sleeper to know what was going on because they were waiting with bated breath for his reaction, so hushed whispers were going around the room as witnesses explained to those who hadn't seen what exactly we did to sleeper boy.
That turned into a bad game of telephone though, because by the time the information reached the culprit's friend in the far corner of the room, the story had changed dramatically. In fact, his friend, mortified by what he had just heard, saw fit to yell across the room to culprit boy, "DUDE! She (pointing to me) touched you inappropriately while you were sleeping!"
Thankfully, I had 20 witnesses in the room who knew that I never left my desk, so we got that matter cleared up right quick. But somehow, those 20 witnesses managed to keep the paper clips in the pants a secret. Then when the bell rang and they all stood up to leave, culprit boy started dancing and shrieking like a little girl because he thought he felt bugs crawling on his legs inside his pants. It was just the paper clips falling out.
Call me a bad teacher, but my passive aggressive consequences are always oh, so satisfying in the end.
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