Activity:  Warm Up Questions and Fly Swatters (s. 1-5)

Time: 15 minutes

Materials: 

• Slides

• Whiteboard Markers

• 2 Fly Swatters

• Vocabulary List with Definitions

Procedure:

• The teacher will ask the students these questions that cover concepts learned in the previous class:

  • What is the school to prison pipeline?

  • What is a zero tolerance policy?

  • How do zero tolerance policies affect students? Do they help?

  • What role does “authority” play in discipline in schools?

• After the introduction discussion questions, you will review vocabulary words with the Fly Swatter Game

Fly Swatter Game:

• “To start this activity, I will divide the class into two groups by counting you off. You all will stand in two lines facing the whiteboard. Then, I will write two of the vocabulary words we learned last class on the whiteboard. The first person going from each group will be handed a fly swatter, then I will say the definition of one of the words out loud. The two people who have the fly swatters will race to hit the correct vocabulary word on the board. Whoever hits it first wins a point for their team!”

• CCQs:

  • “How many groups will you be in?”

  • “What will you be racing to hit with your fly swatters?”

• Repeat this process with the remaining vocabulary words and definitions.

Activity: Turn and Talk Discussion (s.6-7)

Time: 20 minutes

Materials: Slides

Procedure:

• Explain to the class what police presence in schools looks like and what a student resource officer (SRO) is

• An SRO is a police officer that has special training to work in a school. Their job is to build relationships with students and handle discipline in schools when the law is concerned. They can either have really good relationships with students because they focus on building community and getting to know students. Or they can have bad relationships because they focus on being an authority figure and punishing students.

• Ask students if they have seen/experienced police officers in schools they’ve been to

• Ask students if they believe police belong in schools and opinions they’ve heard from others about the subject

Activity: SROs in Schools News Clip Listening Activity (s.8-14) 

Time: 20 minutes

Materials: Slides

First listen:

• • Explain the background of the video about the Adams 14 school district, where the schools got rid of their SRO program

  • Before the first out of 3 listens, tell students the following

  • “You will listen to the video 3 times. For the first listen, you will just pay attention to the video. For the second 2 listens, you will take notes on a piece of paper I will hand out after the first listen”

  • Then play the video for the first time at .75x speed starting at 4:15

Second and third listens:

• • After the first listen,  count students off by one and 2

  • Explain the notetaking process

  • 1 students will be listing the pros and 2 students will be listing the cons

  • Afterwards, hand the students the papers and then ask CCQ’s (ex: have students raise their hands for which notes they are taking)

  • Once the students are ready to take notes, start the video again at 4:15 at .75x speed.

  • After the second listen, give the students time to finish and work on notes. Once the students are ready, start the video for the third time.

  • For the third listen, play the video at full speed starting from 4:15

Partner Jigsaw:

• • Once the third listen is over, the students will find partners with whom share their notes

  • Explain to the students that they’ll share each other's notes, then afterwards discuss their opinions on whether police belong in schools with each other. After that, they’ll share what they discussed with the whole class. Do CCQ’s then proceed to the discussion.

  • Tell students to ask their partners to share and explain the other set of arguments that they didn’t take notes for.

  • Once the students seem to be done sharing their notes, then ask them to discuss their opinions on the arguments from the video. Make it clear that the students are allowed to both agree and disagree with each other.

Activity: SROs in Schools Four Corners Opinion Activity (s.15-16) 

Time: 20 minutes

Materials: 

• Slides

• Labels for Four Corners

Procedure:

• Students will be given 5 minutes to pick whether they:

  • Strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with SROs being in schools

  • Using the other side of their worksheet, they can write their key points using the sentence stems

• Once they’ve had time to plan their arguments, students will stand up and go to the corner of the classroom that matches their belief

  • (Corners should be pre-labeled by the teacher)

• Then, students in each corner can share their reasons why they picked that corner. They can use the sentence stems for language support. 

Activity: Instant Expert Jigsaw Activity (s. 22-24) 

Time: 40 minutes

Materials: 

• Slides

• Identity Cards

• Discipline Situations

Procedure:

• Teacher should shuffle and redistribute disciplinary situations from the activity from last class  so that students are seeing multiple different situations. 

• Teacher should group students into ideally groups of 4 or 6 but any even number works. Teacher should give each student a situation card and an identity card. 

• Disclaimer: These are all authority figures that a student needs to advocate to in their situation. Remember these authority figures are the ‘bad guys’, they want to discipline students and the students need to advocate for themselves. This includes the parents who are not advocating for the students. 

• In the activity two students will be partnered up and going in front of the rest of their small group. Student A will be acting the role on their role card and student B will be assuming the role of the student in their scenario.

• Student A needs to act the role of an authority figure who wants to discipline the student (administrator, principal, teacher, police?)

• Student B needs to advocate for themselves using language framework (this is why I did this, I am sorry I made a mistake, I don’t think that is a fair judgment or punishment).

• The students will then switch roles. In between rounds, the students who are not going will give feedback on the way a student was/was not able to advocate for themselves. Students can discuss register (how students should talk in a power dynamic situation i.e. tone and how they communicate).

• This activity would not be in a zero tolerance policy situation so we don't stress them out but then we could discuss as a class how this would look different in a zero tolerance policy school.