Class participation.

Consistent with the philosophy that the student is in class to learn, as an incentive to getting involved and participating in learning activities I award points for class participation, and these points count toward the student grade.

In order to participate in class, the first requirement is for the student to be in class. If a student skips a class his class participation will be reduced severely. Furthermore, if a student is working on some other subject not related to the current class, he /she is obviously not participating on whatever class is going on at the time. If a student in my class is reading the textbook of another subject or working on a homework for another class, in addition to lowering the class participation grade the textbook will be confiscated until the end of the school day and / or the homework in progress will be confiscated and destroyed.

I don't want my students to be doing my homework on someone else's class. By the same token I will not tolerate students doing someone else's work in my class. I will never ask a student to skip or miss someone else's class to be in my class. By the same token, I will not give permission to my students to be in someone else's class during my class period. Don't bother to ask.

Class participation implies not only physical presence but also active involvement. If a student comes to class without the textbook or the calculator, for example he or she will not be able to fully benefit from the class that day. Other examples of non participation include being engaged in conversation instead of paying attention to class, watching the wall or the ceiling or falling asleep, playing games with the calculator, etc. Accordingly, class participation points will be deducted for infractions involving any of these.

Cell phones, in particular, are detrimental to class participation. The school handbook specifically states that if a student brings a cell phone to school it must be left in the car. It should not be in the student's possession during school hours whether it is ON or OFF, or whether it rings or not. I am required to send any student caught with a cell phone in his / her possession to the office. In addition to that, which is required by school policy, any student caught using a cell phone in my class will have his / her class participation grade severely reduced.

Constantly finding reasons to be out of the classroom, like going to the bathroom during class time, is also detrimental to class participation. The student can always go to the bathroom in case of a real need, of course, but he / she should normally go in between classes, not during class. To encourage self discipline in this respect I will add two bonus points to the total quarter grade at the beginning of each quarter for each of the subjects I teach, provided that the student does not go to the bathroom during class time. One bonus point is lost on each of the first two times that the student goes to the bathroom during class within that quarter. After the second time the bonus points are gone and I will start deducting points from the class participation portion of the grade.