Today I Totally Bitched Out the Fourth Graders

But I had a really good point, and I did it all in Japanese!

It's a simple exercise really, that requires students to take laminated cards with the ABCs on them and arrange them in order on the board. I do this mostly just to get the ABCs up there so we can move on the phonics, or some game, or whatever else you needs the ABCs for. It's an opener, and it's not supposed to take all that long.

I time them to give some incentive for accomplishing it fast. Beat last week's time! Or, beat the neighboring class's time! Older kids who take it seriously can complete ABC board in like less than two minutes.

Their time was one second shy of another class's.. I admit I rounded up.

I wrote the time on the board. The regular classroom teacher was not in the room; she'd had to pull on of the kids to give him a talking-to in the hallway. Yeah, it was that kind of day with that kind of group.

6:49, I said, hm. This is your time for getting the alphabet finished. Know who else had this time? Class 2-1. Second graders. Second graders took as long as you did to do this activity. Now, why is that? My tone was one I rarely take. But why not, I was pissed. They rolled around on the floor, they deliberately put letters in wrong places, or hid them, or sat on each other.

I dunno.

Me either. Aren't you fourth graders?

Yes.

And are you doing your best?

Yeah.

Oh, really? I gave them an appraising look, and immediately moved on. They were subdued the rest of the time. Not making trouble anymore, at least, but not having a 'great time' either.

All the other classes had fun, though. 2nd and 3rd grade was great because I managed to not require them to do 6th grade level work.
It was a tiring kind of day.