students of the corn

My second hour today freaked me out. Discussion was a mess--nobody raised their hands, and I talked myself into circles out of frustration. Basically, discussion turned into direct lecture, which I fucking hate. And the students--instead of searching for answers in their books when I asked questions, just stared at me. They just kept staring and staring and not saying anything. I expected them, in unison, to just say yessssss teacher without any fluctuation in their uni-voice.

Maybe they're planning something.

You think I'm paranoid, but we had a few minutes to spare at the end of the day today, and I walked around and passed back papers and they just stared some more. Their heads, their eyes, followed me around the room as I walked up and down the aisles to find the students who needed their work returned. The room was so quiet. And finally, I broke and said: ALL OF YOU ARE REALLY FREAKING ME OUT RIGHT NOW. PLEASE STOP STARING AT ME.

*

Anyway. Tomorrow, I'm think I'll use the fingers on the nose trick, Kris. Or, maybe I'll just tell them how it's ridiculously bad behavior, when a teacher asks you a question, to stare at her forehead while you wait for someone else to do the work for you. I'll say, when you don't do as well on the quiz, or on the final, you might have to ask yourself. Is this because I just stared at Ms. P while she was teaching and didn't actually interact with the text? I'll make a snarky comment like So, when it's quiz time, you guys are going to say: What? You're not quizzing us on how you wore your hair on Wednesday? Because all I did is stare at you for an hour straight while you blabbed on about whatver play it is we're reading.

I know this is my fault--I've got to find some other way, with only 15-20 minutes to cover all of the good stuff in Act IV. But: we're done with the staring and the mouth breathing.