You should videotape them watching a movie. Then, next time you show a movie, you should show them the movie of them watching the movie. You can say "You see? You see what you are?" It will be a very sobering moment for them all - as no one likes to be faced with one's own shortcomings.
I don't know about that video of them watching the movie. I think they're just as likely to think its funny to watch themselves. I never cease to be amazed at the lack of self-reflection they are capable of.
Instead of a video, I played an "audio" today-- An episode of "This American Life" about the improv group in New York who rocked out for the band from Vermont. For some reason, they still wanted me to turn out the lights, as if it was a video.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that this is a high-school sociology class with mostly seniors in an affluent suburb of St. Paul.
Keep on rockin'!
I just found your site and I have to say that I am very impressed by your consistent entries... and your viewing of Top Model. I actually used the show last year - as a student teacher - to teach Feminist Crit. theory. It was SO great for that! Anyway, I enjoy your blog.
I teach at a k-12 school. We are constantly nagging about our dress code, which sounds a lot like yours. Our problem is not the office, but the parents, who insist that their kids have to dress that way because nothing else can be bought. I can find clothes for myself and my kids that don't show midriffs or underwear, why can't they? By the way, great blog.
What works for me is this. If the adminstration is not willing to back me up, i don't give a shit about it anymore. Jennifer looks like a whore. I see Leon's ass-crack. No problemo. Tardy every dam day to school with a starbucks in your hand? And nothing gets done? Not my problem. As long as it doesn't effect the kids who work hard, I'm not going to waste my time dealing with it.
Sounds harsh and as if I dont care. After 13 years, you pick your battles and don't take things personally.
I agree with Blaise. The point at which a "tuck in your shirt" becomes a five minute ordeal, the rule needs to be tossed. In my junior year of high school, our principal decided to have a shirt-tucked-in rule. The teachers of my honors courses refused to acknowledge the existence of the rule, let alone waste their and our time in a power struggle with a student over whether or not the tail of their shirt was actually under their jeans. In any non-honors courses I took, the teachers were insistent about enforcing the rule. It didn't take me more than a week to become more annoyed with the teachers' yelling and wasting of our time than I ever was with someone's pants being too low. I began to feel that the teachers’ behavior had become the distraction. …The next year, the rule was tossed. Nice blog, btw.
i can't believe you show movies in the classroom! i hope they are educational and that you have questions or a guide to go with it. when i seldom show films, usually Romeo and Juliet, I stop the film at certain points and we discuss to see how it compares with the text. The only time I am ever at the computer or sitting at my desk is before and after school!
I can't believe you stop the film at certain points and discuss how it compares with the text! That's so disruptive, what with the MTV, attention-deficit culture of today's youth! Why don't you have the students play a video game while you're showing/stopping movies and discussing books all at the same time! Throw a juggling monkey in the room, too!
I'm in the deep south in a suburb of Atlanta. Our biggest dress code problems are with the girls, dressing like whores as you said. We don't have a shirt tucked in rule, but the oversized pants dragging the floor are not allowed. Our administrators deal with it. What's more, the teachers are isolated. We see a violation, write the kid up and send it to the office. The administrators call them out of class and if they can't cover them up with a jacket, they put them in in-school suspension and call home for clothes. If no clothes arrive, they stay in suspension all day. Still I see more breasts and baremidriffs than I would have seen anywhere but a hootchie choochie show when I was a kid.
When the kids are waiting to enter my room, I say, "If your shirt has come untucked, now would be a good time to fix it." I don't single anyone out. Most will fix it. If not, I will look at the kid, catch their eye, and then use a hand gesture to demonstrate tucking in their shirt. This is also effective & doesn't usually escalate. These things work, though, because every teacher is consistent with the dress code. If you have some teachers enforcing and others not, that's when you get the protracted battles.
Um, what's up with "calm" & "stressed" in the comments above? LOL
We send them to the office b/c they are not following the dress code. The office does nothing!! This is why we shouldn't have dress codes. Wasted time!!!!
Dress codes are pointless. Are girls dressing as whores distracting? Sure. But if a girl is attractive to a boy anyway, he'll just spend his time fantasizing what's underneath the clothes.
As for guys and drooping pants...uh...so what! Is this so they can't hide guns? I think the time would be better spent dealing with why the kids HAVE guns in the first place. Don't cure the symptom, cure the disease.
And if you think it's sloppy dressing, get over it! Have you SEEN what people were wearing in the 60s and 70s? (or 80's or 90's?). Nothing is ever appropriate to adults, because that's the way teens like it. Duh!
The movie dilemna is pretty easy. They've called your bluff, and you lost. They know you're lying and you don't have that other assignment. The solution is, next time you show a movie, have that nasty assignment in the can. As soon as the disruptions begin, turn off the T.V. (put up with the howls of outrage), and hand it out. I'll bet they settle down for you next time. Yeah, you lose your "break" -- but you're not getting it anyway.
If there's one thing I've learned in this biz, it is to do what I say, cuz facing the music when I don't is always extremely unpleasant.
BTDT -- The 5-paragraph in-class essay does have its uses. And FWIW, I don't have to do it very often -- word gets out that "she don't play" -- hall rep is everything!
(That's the solution for the dress code thing, too -- but that's out of your hands, so I wouldn't worry about it too much -- although I've been known to make cracks along the lines of "Your English teacher should NEVER know what color underwear you're wearing" -- to pretty good effect 
.)
A more strict dress code is NOT the answer. At my (alternative) school, you can't wear anything but white and khaki. If you have a name brand on your shoes you are sent home. There can be NOTHING written on your shirt or pans. I hate it. They have to express their originality with their mouths when their clothes aren't allowed to say it.
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