Terrible Teacher Hacks You Should Never Actually Use

Teachers work hard, there’s no doubt about it. And we’re always open to anything that’ll save us time and/or energy so we can make our lessons incredible.... Well, almost anything. The Internet is chock full of lifehacks to help make your job more manageable. Well, here’s a list of four “teacher hacks” you should absolutely never use in your classroom!

Essay Stack Hack

It’s a Friday night, and you’ve ingeniously assigned a ten-page paper over the past week. And now it is time for reckoning. “Goodbye weekend,” right? Not if you try this handy hack! All you’ll need are handy household condiments, a bathing suit, and a pen!

Start by spreading the essays all over your living room floor. You want to make sure that each essay could be seen from an aerial point of view here, don’t be shy. Head to the fridge and grab the following common condiments: ketchup, yellow mustard, relish, and barbecue sauce (plastic bottles are going to be necessary).

Put on your bathing suit, and stand at the center of the essays. Start by uncapping the ketchup, carefully. Squeeze the bottle with as much force as possible, spraying the ketchup violently about the room. Repeat this process with the mustard, relish, and barbecue sauce, being sure the sauces spread equally across the essays. You’re halfway done!

Closely examine the condition of the essays underneath you, using the following “E-Z grading chart”:

Essay is mostly clean: A

Essay is mostly covered in relish: B

Essay is mostly covered in mustard: C

Essay is mostly covered in ketchup: D

Essay is covered mostly in barbecue sauce: F

That won’t really work, right? Of course not. You’ll need to add some comments. Simple: Circle 3 to 5 paragraphs or sentences.

If student earned an A or B , choose one of the following comments for each circle: wow, great, yes, hmm, nice thought, or simply an exclamation point (!).

or , choose one of the following comments for each circle: wow, great, yes, hmm, nice thought, or simply an exclamation point (!). If student earned a D or F , choose one of the following comments for each circle: vague, is this true, needs revision, hmm, explain, or simply a question mark (?).

or , choose one of the following comments for each circle: vague, is this true, needs revision, hmm, explain, or simply a question mark (?). If student earned a C, mix up the above comments.

Fifteen minutes and you’re already done! Grab a blanket, pop on Netflix, and dig into some Ben & Jerry’s, because you’ve just earned yourself a weekend of leisure!

Fidget Toy Hack

Fidget toys are the latest and greatest in keeping busy hands occupied during lessons. However, there’s a big difference between facilitating active listening and an outright distraction. Spinners have particularly been a challenge for educators as the lines between “therapeutic” and “troublesome” are increasingly blurred. Here are some crafty ideas to replace these attention-draining devices with ones that will both delight the student and keep them engaged in your lesson.

The Yo-Yo: An oldie, but a goody. Give your students yo-yo’s and you’ll never have to fill out a write-up again. You’ll be surprised by how effortlessly students will ease into typing up their lab report whilst simultaneously attempting to wrestle with a string that is certainly too long for the distance between the desk and the floor!

Almost-Empty Peanut Butter Jar: Notice the increase in your student’s focus and attention as they awkwardly scrape the edges of an unkempt peanut butter container with a broken plastic butter knife and tackle their AP Language and Composition exam at the same time! Guaranteed to cover your desks along with your content!

Catapult: Watch your classroom management worries fly across the room with a catapult! The great things about catapults is how diversely they can be used, from your classic miniature trebuchet to your 15-foot Medieval mangonel. Students will be able to launch anything from pen caps to dairy cows, all while tuning into your lesson on derivatives!

Bubble Wrap: Everyone loves bubble wrap, and no space is more conducive to learning than a classroom full of it! The tension in each individual bubble snaps, pops, and cracks out the tension from a long day of classes.

Cell Phone Hack

Cell phones connect us to the world, yet can sometimes separate students from your classroom. Here’s a handy trick that can help your students to at least temporarily “unplug” when you need them to. Just follow the recipe below:

Materials

A five gallon bucket

A long-handled stirring spoon (preferably 3’+)

Extra long tongs

Lemon zester

Step ONE: Place the bucket by the door to your classroom, on a low table (or floor, if necessary).

Step TWO: Add the following ingredients directly into the bucket:

3 gallons of distilled mineral water

Roughly two handful of green cardamom pods

2 tbsp of vegetable shortening

16 fl oz of culinary blue food coloring

13.5 fl oz of coconut milk

1 liter of motor oil (5W-30 or 10W-30)

Step THREE: Stir ingredients together vigorously. Wait 10-15 minutes.

Step FOUR: Continue stirring, adding the following ingredients to the mixture:

4 tsp of organic dish soap

1 gallon of unpasteurized apple cider (UV pasteurized is great, you just don’t want to use any cider that has potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate in it)

.5 tsp of McCormick brown gravy mix

5-6 stewed apricots

1 lb of crushed ice

Lemon zest

Step FIVE: Stir again, with vigor.

When students arrive to class, stay by the door and drop each of their cell phones into the bucket. Students may retrieve them with the tongs as soon as your lesson has concluded!

Image courtesy of Lifehacker

Toilet Paper Roll Hack

Every classroom needs a class project, but budgets are tight and resources are sometimes scarce. Here’s a trick you can try in any classroom, K-12.

Have students collect toilet paper rolls throughout the year. They are easily accessible in their homes, and in the homes of their friends and their relatives. Hold weekly contests by marking every five toilet paper rolls collected with a sticker on a chart at the back of the classroom. Give complete bragging rights to the weekly leaders. Send notes home to remind parents. Mention them on progress reports and final report cards. Add updates to the school newsletter, daily announcements, and school-wide assemblies.

And then just see if they ask about them at the end of the year. Betcha they won’t.

Written by Keith Lambert, Education World Associate Contributing Editor

Lambert is an English / Language Arts teacher in Connecticut.