Natural Consequences

On Wednesday we finished class about 5 minutes early in 4th hour. This class always stands by the door waiting for the bell to ring (which I will never allow when I have my own classroom). They crowd up really close to the open door, almost out into the hallway. They asked repeatedly if they could go to lunch early and I said no. They tell me that the teacher across the hall always lets his students our early, and my students also tell me they always get to lunch last and have to stand at the end of the line. Boo hoo! While they are waiting at the door, I have my back to them working with another student. About a minute or two later I notice it’s quieter than usual. I look over to the door and notice some students have left. I go over and look out into the hall. I don’t see them. All the other students who are by the door look at me with a slightly guilty but I’m-not-saying-anything look. They want to know what I am going to do. I don’t really know what to do. It bothers me that they left early and they disobeyed me, but it’s not a major infraction. So I ask the students what they think I should do. They say I should let them out early the next day and make the three boys who left today stay until the bell rings. What an appropriate consequence! So I agree to it. What’s even better is that the students themselves will enforce it, and they think it’s fair so they won’t put up with any bullshit from the three boys if the boys complain about it. I don’t mind letting everyone go 5 minutes early the next day for this, and honestly they are usually mentally checked out of class the last 5 minutes.

So the next day I let everyone out early except the three boys. I was thinking about what I would do with them… should I make them work or what? I decided I would just let them do whatever they want, and I would clean up like normal after class. They sat there on the desks by the door and kind of talked. One other girl was still in class waiting for her boyfriend, and they mentioned to her that it felt awkward being there by themselves with just a teacher. They tried to tell me it was unfair to let everyone else leave five minutes early because they didn’t leave five minutes early the day before and they were just going to their locker, neither of which are totally true. I just let them continue waiting there while I shuffled papers. Finally, I let them go right before the bell was about to ring.

I felt really good about this consequence. I had class buy-in and the consequences fit the offense perfectly.