The other day, in sixth period, a significant number of the boys decided it would be amusing if they started coughing when I turned my back. Not sick, tickle-in-the-throat type coughing, but that one single cough we’ve all given at one point or another to warn someone that some authority figure is coming.

Why? They’re eighth graders — there’s no logical answer to questions about eight graders’ motivation.

It was one of those moments that I stand there with a stern look to hide the fact (probably not too successfully) that I’m running through all the various classroom management tricks I can remember in an attempt find effective means of ending this nonsense. Running through my mind was something along these lines:

I’m not really sure who’s doing it. I don’t really think it’s a significant enough issue to devote a lot of time to it. I want to make sure it doesn’t come back. I want to keep those who are working from thinking it might be fun to join in. I don’t want to seem vindictive, because it’s really not a big deal — just disruptive.

And a phrase I’d read some time ago in a book about classroom management popped into my head: make the disruption part of the consequence.

Basically, I had them cough like that continuously for a few minutes. I told them, “You’re going to do this for the next five minutes because it’s so fun and I want you to have fun in my class,” but I had no intention of trying to force them to go the full five minutes. “Ninety seconds should do the trick,” I thought as I walked away from the boys. Sure enough, after a little while, one of the boys exclaimed, “Mr. S, this is stupid.”

“I agree. Maybe we can stop doing this stupidity and get back to work, huh?”

Not a single disruption from them for the rest of the period.