Pausing Briefly to Catch My Breath

We are back down to two working thumb drives again. Both of the purple ones have wandered off, and the black-and-yellow one and the blue one have stopped working. I might be able to reformat the blue one, but I think I tried that & still had problems... it's early. I can't remember ;p

Anyway, before I go and drop a chunk of change on a handful of those little suckers, I need to have a better way of keeping track of them. Plus I'm sick of stuff being left out at the end of the class period. So I'm thinking about initiating a token system.

I had bad dreams last night, but apparently it was my subconscious doing some housecleaning (goodness knows that the real-house needs it... but I'm trying to avoid thinking about that) as I woke up with an idea.

First of all, some background info: We're on 4x4 semester blocks - four 90-minute class periods a day, but the classes only last one semester. I get a whole crop of new students after winter break! WOO.

Also, we have a rotating 25-minute break period. Break is after first block on Monday, second on Tuesday, after third on Thursday, and after fourth on Friday. On Wednesday we have club meetings instead of break. Anyway, it's nice because (1) barring medical emergency, there is NO reason for students to need to go to the restroom during class, because there's PLENTY of opportunity during the day, (2) students who can't come after school to get make-up assignments or extra help can come during break, (3) forgot copies? yay break! and (4) (the best part) BREAK DETENTION. Regular detention is mostly an inconvenience, because the student has to arrange for transportation. But break detention is a PUNISHMENT, because all of your friends are out in the commons area chowing down on candy and chips or playing ball in the gym or hackysack outside. And you're NOT.

The only sucky thing about it is that on the day break falls after your planning period, you get to supervise. Let me tell you, few things are duller than watching teenagers chat about NOTHING for half an hour. ;p

Anyway, I'm thinking students will put their names on three popsicle sticks. Then, whenever they need to use a Journalism item - whether it's the class schedule book, a phone book, a disk, a disk drive, a flash drive, whatever - for each item they want to take out of the cabinet, they give me a popsicle stick BEFORE going to get it. After they put the item(s) back, they can have their popsicle stick(s) back.

If, at the end of the day, I have anyone's popsicle stick, that student gets break detention. (Students who leave their OWN materials out will ALSO get break detention.)

I'm hoping this will make it easier to keep track of who has what, but also encourage the little ninnies to PICK UP AFTER THEMSELVES. Grr.

Image thanks to http://www.hobbysilicone.com/