Arkansas teacher kills racoon with nailgun???

This story just came over the AP wire, and while it is really much ado about nothing, the teacher certainly could have exercised better judgement. Here's basically what happened:

At a school in Arkansas, a high school agriculture teacher had planned to demonstrate to the class the process of skinning a coon. Well, the student who was supposed to bring the animal to school for the demonstration brought a live racoon instead of one that was already dead. Now, it's not a good idea to skin a live coon in front of your class. Therein lies the problem. The teacher, wanting to salvage his lesson plan, simply takes the coon out back and procedes to eliminate the animal with a nail gun. My first question: were any students witnesses to this coon getting nailed? The answer: no, apparently no students witnessed the cute, cuddly coon at the end. Still, the killing of the animal on school grounds has caused the story to make the news and has caused the school to comment that animals will not be slaughtered on campus in the future.

Clearly, I have a relaxed approach to this story. Why? Although I am not located in Arkansas, I am a principal in rural Missouri, where probably 70% of our students will deer hunt this season. Something like what happened with this coon would not surprise or offend 90% of my students. Still, teachers have an obligation to think about all of the possibilities and what unintended consequences may occur from one's actions. Killing a coon at school with a nailgun? Probably not the best idea!

Bell Work

In my last post, I discussed the importance of meeting students at the door with a smile. As the saying goes, "The students don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." But what about after they get in the classroom? What is the next step to provide a well-managed classroom?

For my teachers, I suggest they assign bell work each day at the beginning of class. Bell work is a short assignment that is posted on the board or somewhere else in the classroom. Students know they will have a bell work assignment each day, and they begin working on it as soon as the bell rings to start the class period or to start the school day. It should not take long to complete--maybe five minutes. Students should be taught from the very beginning to expect bell work everyday. This routine should be taught and reinforced from time to time, but more frequently at the beginning of the school year.

While students are completing bell work, the teacher is able to take attendance, return graded papers, or take care of other "housekeeping chores." I found that by using bell work in my classroom helped establish the right tone from the very beginning. If there is no structure at the beginning of class, students will find ways to fill the time, and these options will not be the preferable ones to the teacher. Once students get off track, they are more likely to drive the teacher nuts! That's right, it will be much harder to refocus them after things are loose, than to start focused from the beginning.

Try to keep your bell work assignments related to the instruction currently the focus of the class. It's best for bell work to tie into the normal classroom studies. There are lots of ideas about the types of assignment that will work for bell work.