Bribes and Bellringers

I'm bribing my students now. I've become that kind of teacher. On Monday, I couldn't get them to shut up. I mean, they were singing and talking and absolutely had no interest in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Can I blame them? Okay, no. But we have two freaking chapters left to go. On Friday, I had myself convinced that I was a teacher they could respect. They seem to like me, on occasion, for a minute or two at a time. But, if I'm a teacher they respect, why do they think it's okay to have conversations about their hair when I'm trying to talk about Dr. Jekyll's drug addiction? Sometimes, I get on my soapbox and preach to them about being mature adults. "You're better than this. You're being disrespectful to me, to your classmates and to yourself blah blah blah." I throw the word respect around about 20 times a week, and it doesn't have the impact I feel like it should. If someone told me I was being disrespectful, I'd hang my head in shame. Or would I? Maybe I would roll my eyes?

So Tuesday, I bribed them. They get points for being good, points for staying in their seats, points for doing their work, points for pretending to be interested. And it worked. They did it. On Wednesday, I only bribed them a little bit. I did a bellringer* because I'm now the type of teacher who does bellringers along with the bribing. I offered them five points simply for participating in the bellringer. What is that? They should do it without the points. I would do it without the points.

I'm also bribing them to finish Jekyll and Hyde quickly, because we can watch the film version if they finish quickly. But only if they read it. They love film...such cinephiles I have in my classroom. They were drooling over Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet - all 72 hours of it. They begged to watch Twelve Angry Men. Is there a film version of The Metamorphosis? That's what we're reading next. Why even bother with the books?

So my latest teaching goal is this: get them to do things sans bribery. Hmmm...tough one.


*Bell-ringers are lovely little activities teachers have their students do immediately after the bell rings. Usually about five minutes long, the idea is to set the students to work immediately so that they're calm for the rest of the period. Also, I hate them.