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Individuality:
Always remember that you are unique.
Just like everyone else.
— Despair.com
By Cindy Reitzi
One of my not-so-favorite assignments is overseeing mega-mall study halls. Usually, this entails making 50-plus students…study. My experience depends on the school’s reputation of “Study Hall,” how willing the original supervising teacher is to be a minion of Satan to achieve compliance, and how internally motivated the students are.
I’ve seen a range of approaches: the relaxed-extrovert approach and its counterpart, the monastic model, are good study halls; the “I’m-retiring-this-year” pandemonium is not effective.
Basically, no matter which style, a good study hall is where more students than statistical chance are actually studying.
With the relaxed approach, students do study but they are also allowed to talk quietly. If finished with all schoolwork, they may engage in non-study, harmless activities to distract the more distractible from disturbing the serious studiers. When students waste time, a large study hall, mixed in with the herd, is a dandy place since they are designed for independent learners anyway. Still, this set-up can work for many students.
There are upsides, and downsides, to the relaxed approach.
The monastic model, in contrast, is also an effective, although smaller, study hall. Originally starting out 50-plus, it is now half-empty since the extroverts and attention-deficits have fled, usually with passes, to verbalize elsewhere. Which is just how some folks like it. The teacher in such study halls has made things so uncomfortable for those who wish to waste time by talking or not studying that the result is a study temple for those students who need quiet to concentrate and who’d prefer not to hear inane chatter and classmate gossip. These students are relieved that the teacher “brought the hammer down” so they can study in quiet bliss. Monastics are zen-like and serene with no tension from having to check a noise level that exceeds my internal radar of balanced decibels for room size and number of children.
There’s something to be said for both approaches since students are diverse in their learning styles – babbling helps the extroverts learn while tomb-silence comforts the distractible or the introverts. Trouble is, it’s hard to accommodate both. Some teachers compromise by chunking out study time into silence, then quiet-talking blocks.
If you really want everyone studying, then you want a variety of study halls. Focused study halls, connected with a particular program and supervised by teachers in their programs, (9th Grade Core, resource rooms or study skills) are often more effective for less internally motivated students or students who need to learn how to study.
Still, what I dislike about large, unfocused study halls is more procedural than anything else. It’s calling out 50 names because the seating chart is rarely accurate. The revolving door of attendance throughout the school year makes accurate accounting difficult. There’s the M-F lists; the T-R, M-W lists and then the Phy-Ed-on-Fridays-of-B-week lists, not to mention the students with permanent passes elsewhere.
Annoying attendance goes something like this:
Me: calling out 50 names alphabetically, many of whom are not listening because they’re T, V or Z.
While taking attendance, four to six students crowd around the table, poke vaguely at a list of names that are font-size 9 and not easily readable with 50-year old eyes, and state, “I’m here,” then trot back to their seats, not checking for comprehension. Since I don’t know their names, I mark them absent since they stop listening for their names after they, whoever they are, tell me they’re “here.” It’s the pedagogical version of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Later, Unknown Student approaches, scans the attendance list and says (upset): “Dude! You marked me absent! I told you I was here!” demonstrating his “I am the center of the universe” presumption.
Me: “And you would be whom?”
‘Unknown Student’ is crestfallen that I haven’t distinguished him from a sea of 50 other unknown individuals.
But as eternal adaptation is the purview of my profession, I problem-solve. If I must do mega-study halls, I can make them less frustrating. So now, instead of yelling out 50 names, I circulate. I walk from table to table, asking students their names and what they’re studying (or not studying), chatting them up. And I found out it helps with crowd control. These 50 are no longer a mob of teenagers with the lone teacher in front vainly trying to get their attention; they are individuals. “Michael” struggles with metaphorical thinking, “Tanya” nails a geometric proof, “Sarah” sings the virtues of fantasy fiction and “Jason” opines on the current presidential race.
As I help them with their homework or hear their trials, triumphs, and opinions, I’m no longer the anonymous sub to toy with; I’m the teacher who listens and helps them with their lit analysis essays.
Posted June 5, 2008