Setting Them Straight

My daytime class snapped my last nerve today -- and I told them. At least eighty percent of the students in that class show up on time and ready to learn. The other twenty percent either don't show up, come in late, leave early, and/or engage in side conversations and/or put their heads down on the desk while I'm teaching. I get that it's a long class. It's long for me too! But I can't let the twenty percent get in the way of the eighty percent's learning. Today we were going over some exercises from the text together. Two sets of students were engaged in conversation as I tried to do this. One student had come in an hour late, and one came in an hour and a half late. I stopped in the middle of what I was doing and told them to finish on their own.

After about ten minutes, I said that while I consider myself to be a pretty laid-back person, some of them were really annoying me. I told them that I try to respect them as adults, but they make it difficult sometimes. I won't yell over them if they're talking. I said the disruptions made by students who are habitually late, along with the student conversations when either I am trying to talk or we are having a full-class discussion, interfere with learning. Lastly I said that it wasn't entirely about my annoyance, that I want all of them to do well in the class and if they are not present -- physically or mentally -- they will fail the course. I told them that this would be the only time I would say anything. If it happens again, I will remove them from the classroom. And they listened and cooperated, at least for the rest of today's class.