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I haven't had a chance to read all of the responses to this line, but I must chime in anyway. I hope I am not being redundant redundant. I was shocked and dismayed at student behavior one semester when I taught basic English at an urban CC in Baltimore. I was in a computer-assisted room that had swivel chairs at each workstation. On the first day of class, I had students zooming across the floor, swiveling and staring at the ceiling, carrying on LOUD side-conversations, interrupting me with completely unrelated questions -- all while I was trying to go over the syllabus. Over the following two weeks, the behavior just got worse and worse. I was starting to have panic attacks while I was driving to work because I didn't know how to deal with these what were to me bizarre behaviors! I hadn't pursued a degree in secondary education because I didn't want to have to deal with discipline issues in the classroom. But there I was. Making a long story short, I had one student who was clearly bipolar, one who turned out to be autistic, one who had mental retardation, and a few others with severe ADHD. The others hadn't made the bridge from high school mentality yet. Out of pure frustration, I consulted a counselor friend of mine who had dealt with developmental students in a program that taught social skills, job skills, etc. She came in and gave them a spiel about "The Culture of College." It is based on Ellis' Becoming a Master Student. She came in and gave a very intellectualized lecture about the fact that college life has norms. She had them brainstorm all the cultures from which they came. She had them compare and contrast those cultures and the norms for each. Then she, quite deftly I must say, focused on the behavioral aspects of college. Especially in the CC, but also at the university where I teach now, I think a lot of the problem is that students just don't get that the culture has changed. The stakes of the game are quite different. For the balance of the semester, I had the class do several writing assignments about this shift in culture. They wrote descriptions of this culture. They wrote letters to fictional high school students about this shift in culture. They analyzed themselves as participants in this new culture. It worked for me pretty well. It was a rough semester, but the point was made. I think several of those people benefitted from the direct instruction in behavior management, and I never had to "discipline" the class and I never had to get really preachy. Another tack I have had to take recently is this: I had two students who were cutting up loudly in my class this semester. I gave them the evil eye, which quieted them, but after class, I was able to corner one of them and I said, "Tom, I am not going to spend class time asking you to be quiet. That's not my job. I'm here to teach this class. And, furthermore, you are an adult. I am not accustomed to telling adults what to do." It worked. Now they just play with their tongue rings there in the back row, and even answer a question occasionally! My friend and I wrote an article about the use of the culture of college thing, but never bothered to try to get it published (I took another job and it got shoved to the side, honestly). Good luck with your classroom management. It's a bear sometimes! Amy Crouse-Powers Learning Support Services SUNY-Oneonta [log in to unmask] ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Amy Crouse-Powers & Jonathan Powers [log in to unmask] "The stronger, the more sophisticated and sure of itself the society is, the less threated it feels and, consequently, the less repressively it reacts." Vladimir Pozner in Parting With Illusions