Concrete Action Step 1: sit and let the gorilla (the offending words) be acknowledged by all in the room.
Concrete Action Step 2: call a parent then and there to set up a physical meeting with the offending child present that day, and refuse to put it off to another day. make that call so that the kids can hear it or not, as per personal preference. (my own thought is that I will do it, because it is a kind of payback – a child has consciously chosen to be a pain in the ass to me or to a classmate in front of others, so I think it a good idea to return the favor. There are few things a teen would want less than a call to parents by a teacher in front of peers.)
Concrete Action Step 3: the student is removed to the back of the room or, better, to the classroom of a willing colleague where he/she works on translating old stories or on grammar packets. Yumma yumma! Ideally, the student is not removed to a classroom of peers but to a class of students younger than they are or much older so that the situation is uncomfortable for them where no “badge of honor” is possible.
Concrete Action Step 4: after the kid is removed, a class discussion about what just happened follows. No discussion of the person here, only the behavior, referencing perhaps the 2010 rules or the newly minted 2012 metacognition doc.
Concrete Action Step 5: no warnings, just action in the form of a machine.
Concrete Action Step 6: no discussion with the child is to occur about the offense, from the moment you decide to act on it, as the child would then further accomplish their goal of disruption of the class. The first thing we might hear when we stop the CI and turn on the machine is, “What did I do?” in a kind of outraged voice. The answer to that should be silence, or, if anything, one simple statement: “We’ll talk about that later but not in this setting.” Watch for some real bullying and abuse at this time. Relax. Just let the machine take over. (I can have security in my room in ten seconds.) That is what I plan to do. Let the machine do what it is programmed to do.
Concrete Action Step 7: After school call the parent again and document the event with an email to a principal/dep’t. chair or in your system, as per Shannon today. set up any actual meeting that is agreed upon. this comes under the heading, “Would you like to do this now a few times in the fall or fifty times a week in the spring?”