How to handle students falling asleep in class
Exhausted students fall asleep because they desperately need rest, but teachers face the difficult dilemma of whether to let them sleep or enforce rigid participation rules. Compounding this, administrative pressures and de facto no-fail policies often prevent educators from assigning the grades students actually earned.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Waking the student up once to check if they are okay and then letting them sleepDid this help you?
- 2Making humorous noises to wake them up gentlyDid this help you?
- 3Sending the student to the nurse's office or clinicDid this help you?
- 4Contacting parents or school counselors to investigate underlying causesDid this help you?
- 5asking the student to raise their headDid this help you?
- 6telling the student to wash their faceDid this help you?
- 7talking to the student or their parentsDid this help you?
- 8turning the situation over to a school counselor or social workerDid this help you?
- 9Contacting parents even if they do not respondDid this help you?
- 10Letting students fail their assessmentsDid this help you?
- 11Waking the student up for a direct conferenceDid this help you?
- 12Writing a disciplinary referral for insubordinationDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“As I type this, nearly half my class is asleep during a time in which they're to be completing part 2 of their unit assessment.”source ↗
“I contact parents. Nothing changes. They fail assessments. Nothing changes.”source ↗
“And how cool your admin is to come into class with sleeping students. I know mine are not”source ↗
“I generally disagree. It's not at all normal at that age to be that tired that early in the day. I usually will let them sleep because they clearly desperately need it.”source ↗
“The issue is when we're not allowed to honestly report the grades the kids have earned. If you sleep in every class session, you shouldn't pass the class. And yet, there is a de facto "no fail" policy in many schools.”source ↗
“I have this kid in my classroom, who is always sleepy, with his head down on the desk during instructional time and he usually lay down on the carpet durind circle time or mini lessons/explanation time.”source ↗
“I need some advices about how to deal with it. I usually stay around, asking to him to raise his head or to wash his face... but it never works out.”source ↗
“I will say I’ve had a few students who I knew there was a good reason they were nodding off.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How do you survive teaching when students don't care at all?
- 49Why am I so tired and burnt out teaching?
- 6Why do schools blame teachers for student absenteeism?
- 59Why are students coming to class missing basic foundational skills?
- 2How to handle a student who says I love you and gets too attached?
- 2How to handle a clingy and manipulative student