I was told by my deputy to forget this particular detention (as admin are gutless) but to carefully monitor him and to refer the problem to my Head of Dept (who is the master of the handball) if he plays up again so I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
The deputy (for him) was quite supportive over the whole incident and did not want me to do away with the consequences just avoid commiting them to paper. Which is fine by me as I can still carry on implementing everything you have advised. I will get round this by writing the consequences on the whiteboard.
I started on Monday had the glitch with the mental parent on Weds but by Friday I was winning and had the students working quietly with minimal fuss or rudeness and the boy in question kept a low profile. So your ideas are already paying dividends.
Cheers
JULIE H.

The short answer is this: I would not call this parent again, nor would i let her son back into my class until detention was served.

Rather than go on the defensive, I would tell your Principal you want this parent to apologize to you and the community for comparing bringing pencil and paper to class with carting innocent people in trains to their death at gunpoint.

Your rules will have no weight without consequences for breaking them, so without 11 and 12 you might as well not have them.

I’m teaching gr 9 maths. I’m Afrikaans speaking. In our school we have more than 8 or 9 cultures. (Zulu’s, Xhosas, Indian, Afrikaans, English and so on) .
The school is double medium. All the Afrikaans speaking students of a grade is in Afrikaans classes and all the rest is in the English classes. You said you taught all ages, abilities and ethnic backgrounds.
Your book worked on all the Afrikaans (I am Afrikaans) classes. And it is great!! But as soon as the Zulu’s and Xhosas enter my classroom it is chaos. I am really doing everything in your book. Why is it working on al the Afrikaans classes but not on the English classes? I don’t know if anyone else has ever been in my situation?

“Don’t try to discipline the whole class all at once over and over. Once the class sees you can get the worst student to behave, your directions will have bite since they know what lies ahead if they are next.” I’ve copied this form a question you’ve answered.
But it really does not work! In my class of 40 students (English is not their or my mother language) there is more than 15 students a day that come to detention.
I always pick the worst student. I give him detention. I tell him what will happen if he disrupts my class again. I only discipline one student at a time! It is not working. No one thinks anything about what lies ahead if they are next. They all keep on talking, making comments laughing, making noises. As soon as I go to the next student telling him to stop disrupting my class the first student has already started to talk again. So I go back to the fist student asking him to please leave my class for disrupting the second time. And there he goes! This continues for almost the whole period until I have 15 students with detentions and all of them had to leave my class for disrupting again. This has been going on for about 2 weeks now! Am I doing something wrong? They always show up for detention, but it doesn’t seem to bother them. I worked through your book more than 3 times. Can it be that I’m to young and they don’t respect me or the fact that they speak their own language so that I can not understand?

I think I have a special situation or “sticking point” where I really need a little help over the hurdle. I have full faith that I WILL get over it, because I know that your book is real and it works!

Thanks again for all your support
Warm greetings
Elmien

The rules are copyright and only you, who bought the book, have permission to use them legally. But in small cases I don’t mind. You should work with the other teachers to coordinate detentions, and have one or two teachers hold all the detentions for the day; in other words, you could have a list at the end of the day that is given to the teacher holding the detentions, and they take roll from that. If a student received a detention from more than one teacher that day, they will have to come the next day also or until all of their time is made up. Another option, depending on how many are given out, is just to have them come the next day to the other teachers and you will send them a note. You could also then consider moving into 30 minutes after school since the teacher may only stay once a week or whenever you take detention duty. Also have those teachers buy the
book! If everyone is using the same effective policies your learning environment at school will be a wonderful one!

I’m a 24 year old teacher from South-Africa. I downloaded your book and read it right trough the night. Never in my life did I read something so interesting, helpful and real! I would easily pay more than R5000 for your book and I think its value is more than anyone can every imagine. Thank you very much for sharing it with us. It helped me to become a very happy and satisfy teacher. And I can boldly say I have the best job that exists thanks to your book!

However there is something that bothers me a bit!! Since other teachers saw how disciplined and quite my class was they asked for a copy of my rules. I refused to give it to them so they got it form the kids. Now all of them give 15 min detention. I do not have the power to give attention to anyone because as soon as I give someone detention their answer is that they already have to go to another teacher’s class for detention. I’m not sure how to handle this situation!

Regards Elmien

I bought your book in March 2009. I have been considering leaving teaching. I am in my 9th year, and teach HS math at a school with most students placed in math classes where they have not learned the prerequisites.

I used the techniques and it saved me from quitting.

However, in your ebook you say to

“Start with the rules, no warnings after, and a consequence,
and everything will dramatically improve, fast. Remember the
broken window theory—don’t let small things go. After you’ve
gotten a quiet classroom, keep at the small things for
maintenance (turn around, Joe/get on task, Mary/Paul, you
need to be at a 90 degree angle to your desk, etc.)”

Isn’t the “maintenance” giving a warning with no consequence?

This is not the only place in your ebook that this apparent inconsistency, that is about holding students accountable every time with no reminders.