Second Calls

We do not have buses at my school and so at the end of the day the children pack up and I ask them to complete homework while they wait for their ride. When their parent arrives in the car pool line and they are near the building, the child's name gets said over the intercom and the child leaves to go home. This year I am working hard with the children to keep their desks looking nice and neat. Therefore the only items they are allowed to have in their desk are books. I do not allow them to keep paper, pencils and pens in their desk at the end of the day.

To help them with keeping a clean desk, I walk around the end of the day to inspect each desk. Slowly but surely the children are catching on and I only have a couple students now who need those reminders. I get to Agnes' desk today though, and it has paper, scissors (which are not allowed at the desk unless we are cutting), pencils and pens. It is a complete mess. I call Agnes over to clean her desk.

Agnes begins messing around with the items in her desk and then her name is called. She grabs her backpack and two lunch boxes (she forgot one yesterday) and begins to leave the classroom.

"Wait Agnes, did you clean your desk?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Well, just wait until I inspect your desk before you leave." I get to her desk and realize she has really not done anything but move her mess around to new locations in the desk. "Agnes this is not clean. You need to clean this before you leave."

"My name was just called."

"Well, you will have to get a second call then, so you can clean out your desk."

"I have somewhere, where I need to go."

"Well Ms. J told you before your name was called to clean your desk and now you will have to learn to get that done before the end of the day."

Agnes was not happy with me, but she quickly got the point she wasn't leaving until her desk was clean. I don't think we will have this problem again tomorrow.