Should you sleep or do more important things in your class?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

<p>I know that prioritizing is a big issue, so do any of you sleep or do more important work while your teachers are lecturing? Some of my teachers do not teach only what we should know (i.e. they go off on different tangents that are impertinent to the curriculum). However, most are just a mixture: they talk about what we need to know for a moment and then talk about something completely off topic (eg. stories, jokes, etc.). I mean, I want to learn when they are actually teaching but then when they aren't... why bother listening if you have tons of other more important things planned? Personally, I'd rather be working on more important things like doing my homework for harder classes or studying for the SATs. Either that... or sleep. </p>

<p>However, if you do all of the things described above instead of listening to your teacher, will they start to hate you and start grading your papers, quizzes, and tests more harder? A couple people in my class do homework from their other classes and the teacher never says anything to them. I did it once but the teacher looked at me a couple of times (I usually fall into the trap of listening). What would you guys do in these kind of classes? Would you listen to the teacher's fluff or do other things? How would you guys make your actions more favorable to the teacher? :/</p>

2

<p>Sleeping is clearly disrespectful, but go ahead and do more important stuff if the teacher doesn’t care too much and it isn’t obvious.</p>

3

<p>If you sit in the back, I say, do your homework. I sure do. I sat in the back of AP Chem first quarter, and that was the most productive 45 mintues of my day. Now I sit in the front, and personally, I do have morals, and I think its insulting to teachers to blatanly ignore them infront of their faces. So now I do my hw more discreetly and only if it’s urgent. The best policy is to try to not let the teacher see you. If you can get away with it, go ahead. It’s only benefitting you. However, it would be stupid to do hw in a class where you need to pay attention. I’m already doing badly in AP Phys, and it seems each time I take a period to catch up on other work, I only do worse. </p>

<p>As for sleeping, teachers can’t legally penalize you for sleeping in their class, but they probably will indirectly if you do it too often.</p>

<p>For example, I slept in my math class quite often last year, and when I started to fail (not a result of sleeping, but because I really had no idea what was going on) she suddenly had ‘no time’ to help me out. However, when the little teacher’s pet got a C on a quiz, she suddenly had ‘mornings and afternoons availiable for extra help’. Also, she had a funny habit of screaming at me for being late and she would ALWAYS mark my tardies down, while her other student’s never got theirs marked. And she would always flip my hw back and forth, checking every single problem and taking off half-credit if I missed a single one, while she merely glanced at the front page of her fav students, not even bothering to check the back.</p>

<p>Anyway, that’s why she has a giant bald spot and a coke habit.</p>

4

<p>Here was kind of an overview of my senior year of high school:</p>

<p>1st Semester</p>

<p>1st Block (Physics Honors)- Slept sometimes when she was just lecturing, I had the teacher before and she loved me so I could get away with sleeping or doing calc homework while she was lecturing</p>

<p>2nd Block (AP Calc BC)- Never slept or did other homework until the end of class when he let us work on that night’s assignment. He was just one of those teachers that didn’t allow it. Still my favorite teacher of the year though.</p>

<p>3rd Block (AP Eng. Lang)- Unless we were doing actual work, I would do work for other classes (mostly for government) or just sleep. Actually, a lot of the time I would just talk to my friends during most of the class, but that eventually gave our corner of the room the “loud” section, but nothing bad ever came out of that except one of my friends got moved.</p>

<p>4th Block (AP U.S. Government)- Always tried to stay awake during this class as it was by far the hardest nine weeks of the year for any of my courses. I did fall asleep a couple times though, but that was only because I was so tired by this point even if I had slept in other classes.</p>

<p>4th Block 2nd Nine weeks (AP Comparative Politics)- This class was taught by a burnt out hippie teacher that I had already had in 10th grade for AP WH which I was the only one to get a 5 on. So when I slept during just about every single one of his lectures and videos that he showed, he said it was okay. I just had to turn in good essays, which were our only grades.</p>

<p>2nd Semester</p>

<p>1st Block (AP Psych)- I purposefully chose this class over AP Physics because of its easy reputation. Since our teacher would NEVER talk about anything pertaining to what was on the AP exam, I simply put on my headphones after finishing the Chick-Fil-A breakfast I would bring in and fall asleep on my backpack. Unless of course I had a lot of homework or a test in calculus</p>

<p>2nd Block (AP Calculus BC)- Same story as first semester. </p>

<p>3rd Block (Teacher aide for calculus teacher)- Since not much ever needed to be done in the math department, I had a lot of time left over in this class. I started out the semester sleeping, but the teacher didn’t like that since I was still sitting in his class. So I basically studied for economics and psychology using my Princeton Review book. This helped immensely as the rest of my economics class had trouble grasping the concepts we learned so quickly, but I had studied so I would be ahead of the game without ever doing outside homework.</p>

<p>4th Block (AP Economics)- Micro the 1st half and Macro the second half. I slept a lot in here when I could, since I would always be tired again by this point. I would sometimes listen though since I actually did enjoy this class. Or I would just talk to my same group of friends that were loud in my English class.</p>

<p>The reason I slept nearly every single day at school was not just because of boredom, but because of the fact that I overloaded myself with tons of EC’s that year. I also had senioritis so I would have trouble starting on homework before 11 PM meaning that I wouldn’t finish until like 1 or 2 leaving me with only 5 or 6 hours of sleep. And I needed more sleep to get through the 10k workouts at swimming every day.</p>

<p>So in conclusion you should look at it on a case by case basis. I generally slept when I was sure I still could get an A in the class (I kept all A’s that year even with senioritis and sleeping) and I knew I could study other times for AP tests and such. I passed all 7 AP exams that year, but not without massive cramming the week before the tests.</p>

<p>The year prior (my junior year) was similar in that I had classes I could and couldn’t sleep in, and I almost always slept when I could.</p>

5

<p>I think it’s better to do homework than to sleep in school. The 10 intermittent minutes of sleep you get sitting in a hard chair probably isn’t the best sleep, and you could be doing homework that you’d otherwise be doing at midnight when you could be asleep. I say get your homework done instead.</p>

6

<p>I would never even consider doing other homework, much less sleeping during lecture!! Ahh! I think that is pretty much unheard of in my classes. That is really rude and disrespectful in my opinion. It is one think to do other homework when your teacher gives you a five minute break or something, but to sleep during a lecture??? I think any of my teachers would go ballistic!</p>

7

<p>I’d listen to the lecture. Helps me learn the stuff for that class that I may need later for a test.</p>

8

<p>crosswords.</p>

9

<p>I only sleep when I have study hall… But I haven’t had study hall in years so… and now I’m home schooled, so a tad hard to sleep when it’s one on one. Eh, it depends.</p>

10

<p>Sleeping is a selfish and corrupt action.</p>

11

<p>Use caution! I usually try to listen in these classes. There are a ton of “games” you can play to keep a teacher on topic. My personal favorite is to ask really hard questions that spark discussion. This not only helps you and your teacher stay focused, but also your classmates that may or may not be trying to concentrate.</p>

12

<p>90% of high school class time we “did work.” Which is pure BS, because:</p>

<p>a) Chairs suck.
b) If classmates don’t suck then you are discussing how big of a b*tch George W. Bush is. Beats me how it is related to the learning of math or English but is quite fun.
c) It is impossible to work productively.</p>

<p>So I skipped classes or slept in them.</p>

13

<p>I wish I could sleep in my classes. I have to sit in the front row because otherwise I can’t see the board. Sometimes I’ll play sudoku, though…</p>

14

<p>I sleep in one of my classes. AP Psych, I can’t help it. It is right after lunch and he turns off the lights and just has us write down notes the whole glass. While he goes over them in class. I guess it is like a college class, but all his notes are in the book so I just read the book if there is a test or something. </p>

<p>I really do try to stay awake, but often I just can’t.</p>

15

<p>hmmm lets go through my day</p>

<p>AP Lang–Hardest and craziest teacher in the school. Also the best teacher in the school. It’s impossible to do hw in her class or sleep. If you tried, you’d be called out, embarrased, and kicked out at that very moment. Not that I’ve ever known anyone who tried to do something like that in her class…EVER. </p>

<p>Math 12H–um. my teacher is insane? she talks to herself and is oblivious to everything around her. It would be a waste of time not to do work. If I have nothing to do, I still don’t sleep though, it’s too fun to fool around with the people sititng near me. I have a great seat. haha. How do I manage an A+? I go to extra help the day before tests. </p>

<p>French College Honors–I’ve had the same teacher for 3 yrs. I do not pay attn in class. Possible exception: the day before a grammar test if I have nothing else to do. I get the majority of my busywork done here and often sleep if i’m not talking to my friends and txting my crush who sits across the room… He’s gotten used to it. </p>

<p>AP Econ–my teacher is an idiot. We have lectures with pwpts but she prints out the pwpts so its not vital that you pay attn. I try to though, because economics is something that is easier to understand with someone explaining it to you rather than just reading a text. But if needed, I always have the opp to do hw in this class. not sleep though, I sit in the front. </p>

<p>Health–completely pointless but hard to sleep/get work done in beacuse a lot of times we move around for diff activities. If we are watching a video or something though, prime sleeping time. </p>

<p>AP Stats–impossible to do hw in without looking like an idiot cuz he calls on people randomly and then you just sit their completely frazzled and having no clue whats going on and everyone is staring at you for the answer. Extremely boring so often I find myself beginning to fall asleep before waking myself up. </p>

<p>Gym–pointless. </p>

<p>AP Physics–some days we learn stuff. most days we don’t. It’s the end of the day, so usually too excited to go home to sleep, but we spend our time playing hangman and talking.</p>

16

<p>READ MY 4TH HOUR. It’s funny.</p>

<p>Hmm… here’s what I do. </p>

<ol>
<li>Anthro- Usually AP english homework. </li>
<li>Spanish- Must do AP English homework VERY discreetly because she’s like a hawk lol. </li>
<li>Chem- Blatantly do other homework in his class even though I sit in the front row right behind the overhead. He and I have had issues so I don’t care if I’m disrespecting him.
***4. AP English- This guy is a freaking homework dictator. It’s funny. There is one group of desks in the middle surrounded by a ring of desks and he sits looking at us on one of the desks right in front of the group of desks. If he sees somebody doing homework he flies across the desks like you see in movies, head first and closes the book. And then gets back up like nothings happened. It’s so hilarious. He makes a game out of how many people he can catch and then comes up behind you and scares the crap outta ya. </li>
<li>Calc- Can’t afford to do any other homework in that class. </li>
<li>AP World- Headstart on that night’s homework for other classes, especially calc.</li>
</ol>

<p>All in all I get more done at school than home because here I have CC.</p>

17

<p>I sleep almost every single day in my Trig class for at least 2 minutes each day. I live in Hawaii and the windows are always wide open with the nice warm breeze flowing in…and I sit right next to the windows with the beautiful view outside…I just can’t help but fall asleep =[ Not to mention he turns out the lights to have darkness for the projector…My teacher is completely fine with me sleeping though lol because I have a 100% in his class. He’s probably one of the two teachers I’m closest too also, he’s already written me two great recommendations for clubs.</p>

<p>In other classes when we’re doing anything however, I do hw.</p>