Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Pencil Sharpener A few students in the classroom I am observing in get up unnecessarily several time during a lesson to sharpen their pencil. The pencil is not dull nor broken and the student will still get up to sharpen their pencil during instructional time. This distracts the other students and causes the misbehaving student to miss out on learning. The teacher I am observing has tried implementing a strategy where four fully sharpened pencils are given to each student prior to the beginning of class to limit the amount of times students need to use the sharpener. However, even with this new strategy, I witnessed a few students purposely breaking their pencil just so they could get up and sharpen it. What strategies could be used to prevent students from using the pencil sharpener as an excuse to distract themselves during a lesson? Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) The teacher needs to review the classroom rules and procedures with the entire class. If it is a student who just needs to fidget and get up and move, have a space at the back of the classroom for the student to pace around during the lesson to not distract the rest of the class. Other ideas can be have other pencils sharpened so it does not happen throughout the lesson or give the student a handheld sharpener for when the pencil breaks during the lesson. Last idea is to give the students who are constantly breaking the pencils either a pen or whiteboard and a marker.