Classroom Management: A Case Study

Yesterday, I was just 5 minutes into class and 2 seconds away from getting into the heart of the lesson when out of nowhere came the sound of glass breaking and a wave of gasps. A student had bumped his elbow into his ink well, sending his brimful bottle and its dark-staining contents all over the floor. There it was, an ink blot asking me the big question: what the heck should you do now? Stop the lesson and clean it, ignore it and go on, a little of both? What to do? What would YOU do in a situation like this?

I decided the mess had to be cleaned up immediately or it would stain. If one student cleaned, all the students would be watching him, so we might as well make it a class effort to clean it up as quickly as possible. But the questions continued. How do you clean that much ink all over the floor? How do you even clean ink? And where would we get the water? To my knowledge, the nearest place to get water was across campus? What would YOU do in a situation like this?

Life works in mysterious ways. We needed water. Well we got water. Not more than 10 seconds after the ink incident and the initial attempt to clean it all up began, I heard an explosion on the right side of the classroom and high-pitched screaming. At first it honestly looked like the kids were being electrocuted by some powerful white current coming from the wall. My heart nearly vaporized at the sight of them being struck by this thing and the sound of their shrill screams. Fortunately... oh thank God... it was just a high pressure stream of water. Somehow, the water surging through the radiator blew off a gasket and then came out spraying the students in its line of fire. What to do? Continue teaching? lol

The students rushed to plug the hole in the radiator, but it was a lot of water and the pressure was very high. The room was flooding quickly. Finally, some students managed to slow the force of the water coming out by stuffing their jackets and shirts into the hole. Still water was coming out and quickly spreading across the classroom. Yo, Jack and Rose, the Titanic is going down!

To understand this situation fully, you need to realize how cramped these classrooms are. 80 students and 80 desks in rooms no bigger than American classrooms. It's a sardine tin in there. Somehow, we had to get all the students to work together to either help mop up or just plain move out of the way. As if by magic, they found their niches. In five minutes the situation was at least stable. The water was no longer gushing out..merely seeping out through the shirts. Some students were managing the flow of water with buckets. Some students were mop/drying the floor. Some students were drying out the mops. Some students were trying to get the 'janitor.' Some students--the majority--just sat at their desks and did homework, studied, or chatted. A quarter of the students worked feverishly while the other 3/4ths sat back and let them. Should I have tried to teach half the classroom? What would YOU do in a situation like this? I figured, this period is surrendered!

By the way, some janitor this place has. The guy came after a long time, inspected, laughed a little giggle, left, and came back later to fix the problem later. I've told you before. There really is no such thing as a janitor of the American high school standard in China. Everything is on the students, and this situation was no different.

By the end of the class, the situation was much better. The water flow was under control by swift bucket action, and the floor was looking cleaner and cleaner. And remember that lake of black ink all over the floor? GONE! Absolutely a job well done!

So, what did I contribute? Not a whole heck of a lot honestly. I kinda felt guilty about it. I didn't know who, where, or how to speak to ask for help. The students were cleaning and wouldn't have dared let me help them. I couldn't teach. So I just stood there and watched. Oh yeah... I kept the kids semi-quiet and calm... but my efforts were essentially nullified by the classroom monitor who shushed the students with that famously loud, mock-angry, mock-fatherly shouting that all class monitors in China are famous for having and using whenever the chance presents itself. So yeah, I didn't make much of a difference. The situation was handled smoothly and effectively no thanks to me. These kids are great...

By the way, if this situation had happened in class 6, I fear we would all be at the bottom of the HuaiYa Sea. Seriously!

Oh yeah, and by the way, apparently these radiators explode like this all the time. Happened in the English office. Happened in Class 12 a couple months ago. And happened yesterday in Class 1. How's that for a little excitement in the day?