New Administrators Made Students Walk In “Lanes” To Stop Tardiness, But The Kids Followed The Rule So Literally That Everyone Got Later
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Kids often don’t take things seriously, even when they should, and that especially applies to schooling.
That was the case in this story, where a new team of administrators made a new rule requiring the students to stay in one of two ‘lanes’ while in the hallway, as if they were cars.
The kids in the school did exactly that and pretended to be cars, and they took it to an extreme that made them late to class more than ever. Eventually, the administrators gave up and rescinded the rule.
Hallways had “lanes” for students to get them to class faster
I was a teacher at a middle school in 2014/2015 that was Title 1 School (extremely low income and test scores).
Ok, the new administration has been tasked with improving results at the school.
The state government actually removed all administration staff two years prior, for the whole district, as the student outcomes were so low.
The new admin came in with a micromanagement authoritarian directive to improve test scores. One of their brightest ideas was to put lanes in the hallways to manage flow and gets students to classes faster.
The kids are having a good time with it.
There were three lanes. Two one ways along the walls, and a middle “teacher only lane.” Within about three days, all the students were driving imaginary cars.
They orderly followed one another, would let people in to merge, used turn signals, and generally was pretty fun for a few days.
Honestly, this is pretty funny.
The teachers would direct students at intersections and played along for a bit. The flow did slow down though, as students wouldn’t pass each other and would have trouble merging into traffic around doorways.
Another thing taking time was the students parking their imaginary vehicles outside the classroom. They would spend time backing them into spaces, or have trouble parallel parking.
If the system is making kids late, it needs to be tweaked.
The admin didn’t like this and really started getting angry at the staff and students as so many kids were still tardy to class. They actively were handing out detentions and pretty angry at staff for playing along. This really triggered the students to start getting malicious.
The students couldn’t cross the middle lane, so they would have to walk down long hallways and make u-turns to see their friends or get to their lockers/classrooms.
It really seems like the kids needed to get in trouble for what they were doing.
They started cruising the long hallways with their tricked out imaginary low riders. They would have shock noises even. Some of the really popular kids started a bus system where they had a schedule to pickup other students and deliver them to other classes.
They would hold shoulders and move as a block. Sometimes the bus broke down at an intersection and blocked traffic for everyone.
These kids are out of control.
Drag racing started where they held up traffic and raced down the hallways. Police would pull people over and write tickets. The most annoying part was students needing to leave the classroom to check on their cars to make sure no one stole it.
Sometimes a student would come back from the bathroom and ask if anyone was driving a type of car as it was being towed. The disruptions in class started to really get out of control.
The administration has abandoned the idea.
Admin thought it was going to be a phase and students would get bored. The best part about school for the students turned out to be the time in-between classes. Everyone was tardy constantly.
Eventually, the lanes (tape) were ripped up and they shortened the passing period time by 2 mins so students had to rush to class and couldn’t spend any time in the hallways.
Why can’t the school keep these kids under control?
The cars slowly died out and the new ‘fad’ was needing to use the restroom during class time because the passing period was like 3 mins long and not enough toilets to satisfy all the students legitimately.
Students were written up for needing to use the bathroom, so kids just started clogging toilets and peeing wherever.
It is pretty funny, but at the end of the day, it is these kids who are hurting themselves by failing to take their schooling seriously.
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Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about what happened.
This teacher loves the story.
The kids were having a lot of fun with it.
This is too funny.
It shouldn’t be hard to get to class on time.
This commenter is spot on.
The students were just having fun with the rules. It was the administration that failed to turn that energy into something good.
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