Yin and Yang

Amazing how one day can change the tone of the class who were a little more ratty today. It appears that the return of ME and CO might be a factor after two days absence. I don't know but I have to do some review on how they influence people in the class. I guess I need to continually present what I think we are on about and try and get them to understand this.
I know at one stage I forgot that today and got sucked into a power play with SA. I gave him a pen to use for decorations and he simply passed it on to other students and did not return it to me. At the end of the day I pointed this out to him and he started arguing. I said you can argue all you like but I still need to make a point. At this stage the rest of the class were waiting for us to finish so that they could go home. SA was very aware of this and played up to his audience. What I should have done was stop there and spoken to him alone after class. Instead, as I say, I got sucked into an argument with SA. I will apologise to the class and speak to him privately tomorrow.
We are on the home leg of decorating the class. It is quite obvious that some students are just taking it as an opportunity to bludge but many are still very involved. I will change tomorrows lesson by bringing some school work on Science and the students need to ask me to complete any decoration work. I have one very proud student's drawing of a motorbike that I will laminate so that it will last more than a few weeks.
Some of the other displays are quite poor and it has annoyed me a little that they think that they look ok, when quite clearly (to me anyway) they are not. What I think I will do early next term is to allow groups of students to apply to do another display instead of doing the unit we will cover in Science. Their display needs to be Science based. The class will vote on the applications. Only one group will be allowed to create a display. Then the class can vote on which display will be replaced. I am sure a secret vote should ensure that the "dud" one gets removed.