Teaching is an art, and it's meaningful and rewarding and enjoyable most of the time. Supervising study hall doesn't fall into the category of "most of the time".
And you may think that a person that makes my kind of salary would be thankful for monitoring a study hall, right. You might think it's just an extra period of the day to accomplish stuff like grading paper, making lesson plans, etc... You would be wrong, well not totally wrong but still wrong. Study hall supervision seeing students not be students, and that's very frustrating.
In my classroom, I provide what I hope are activities and learning experiences that will help students grow academically and mature. I'm not suggesting each lesson plan is worthy of a distinguished honor, but most students aren't following to sleep or complaining as if it's a trip to the dentist. Study hall, though, for most students is 90% social time and mental break and 10% productive work. And for many students, 10% is a stretch. And for many of those many students, I have them in English III. And for the really special kids, I have them in English III, and they are failing, and they still only socialize. UGH!
You might say that I should get tougher - maybe allow no talking and constantly circulate the room and demand students be completely quiet and working on coursework or at least reading a book. You might say I should prohibit students from sleeping or any other non-productive behavior. I don't think it's my job to MAKE students work. And even if I tried, it would be a foolhardy effort. Kids that don't want to work are going to work very hard at not working.
The addition of chromebooks hasn't helped. Chromebooks are wonderful tools, but they are also windows to video games and movie clips and many other avenues of attention that are not school related. Again, is it my job to monitor all chromebook usage? It's not possible.
Generally speaking, I take attendance to make sure the natives are accounted for. They aren't bad kids; in fact, they are very good kids. Unfortunately, they are satisfied for less than their potential performance. Getting C's is okay...for some students, getting D's are okay. And for others, avoiding all work is okay and failing the class is no big deal.
I'd much rather prefer to teach another class and have more official work to complete versus monitoring a study hall. YUCK! I hope next year I am able to teach something else - perhaps Public Speaking first semester and second semester. That would be a much better situation.
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