Today was my second day full time in the classroom. It was really hard to stay positive and keep a smile on my face. The class, as my teacher said, was treating me like I was a sub. And I could tell. They were seeing how far they could go before I became upset. It was interesting because some of the students that are normally very well behaved were talking a lot to their neighbor, not wanting to work, or blurting out answers, when they knew from lessons I have previously taught, when they should be raising their hands. My CT was out of the room a lot of the time working on other things she needed to get done in the hall way while I taught. I'm not sure if students were being disruptive more so than usual because she was out of the room and I was teaching or because normally when she was teaching I would be watching students from the back who were talking and being disruptive and then stopping them or standing behind them to let them know I was there. They have a lot of stuff also coming up. Tonight was our second half of teacher conferences, tomorrow we have an early out, they don't have school next week, and the week they come back we have a field trip.
I started out trying to teach how to write a paragraph. I was going to incorporate the promethian board and we were going to identify the parts of a paragraph then I found a cool format that looked like a cheese burger (Top bun was main topping, the middles were the 3 details and the bottom bun was the wrap up sentence). As soon as I began to tell them that we would be learning about how to write a paragraph at least three people began to complain and proceeded to blurt out that they already knew what to do. I told them that it was a good thing they knew and that they could help by answering questions and refreshing the minds of those that didn't know. One of them like the idea the others started to talk to people near them and became a distraction to the class. I tried being positive by calling out those who where doing a great job and giving out stickers (part of our rooms positive behavior system) to those who where answering questions. We got through the question part. I try asking them first what they know and they normally seem to want to share their knowledge. This helps me learn what they know as well as help refresh the students who have forgot. I then told them that they needed to sit quietly so that they could see the board and I needed a light person (one of the jobs) to turn the lights off. The then lead students to begin pushing students to get to a different spot and even though I reminded them to be quiet they continued to talk. After this I realized that they were not going to get a lot of learning done and needed to be separated as well as needed a moment to be told what they were doing wrong. So I sent them back to their seats. At the beginning of the day the CT and I decided to give them an extra recess at the end of the day. For every letter in RECESS they would get 2 minutes of outside time. If as a whole class they were being bad a letter would be erased, if an individual was being disruptive their name would go up and they would miss time. When I went to erase a letter and was telling them why I was erasing a letter I had a few students say something like "so", "I don't care" "I didn't want the recess anyway." I was baffled by this behavior because as a student I would want to have that extra time. My CT heard what was happening and then came into the room and proceeded to tell them that I was the teacher for the week and they were being disrespectful. Then even at Music the teacher asked me to erase one of the letters for our recess because they were unable to listen then.
Luckily after this was lunch (and 3 students had to stay in because they couldn't like up properly after a warning). This gave me time to reflect and gather myself. I wanted to come back in a better mood and more positive. My goal was to give out more compliments and rewards. Maybe if they saw that I was giving out rewards for good behavior they would want the same rewards.
My first lesson after lunch and recess was to introduce vocabulary cards for the week and then read a short story. Normally the students are well behaved for the CT during this time. Students know that they would be asked to come up with a sentence for each word (7 of them) and I would call on multiple people. A lot of the students were ready to listen and paying attention. Unfortunately a few of them were not and this caused the others to be distracted as well. After the cards we transitioned into reviewing about fantasy and reality which we learned the day before. I reminded students multiple times that I needed their full attention, (red voices and eyes on the board). The next activity was a story. The group is normally attentive for a story or a movie. It was not the case during this time. While reading if I caught students talking their names would go on the board or they would get a check. This was done without saying anything so that my story would not be disrupted. Students already knew what it meant. Even this did not work so well. Students were still talking and not paying attention. Ok, I thought, let's get them moving. I played a quick game of simon says in order to get them moving and hopefully listening. It also allowed me to ask the questions I wanted because I said 'simon says whisper... to your neighbor. The students then began to get even more hyper and there was some pushing and students being disrespectful to each other. Once settled down we started word of the day. This went a lot better, but still a little rough. They get to play hang man in order to find the word of the day. I had a lot of students (who normally didn't) blurt out answers when they knew them.
To skip ahead we ended up having a community circle instead of doing math. I knew that learning wouldn't happen anyway with all the problems. We went around with the quiet mouse and said what we were doing wrong and how we were disrupting the group, then they were to go back around the circle and had to say something we were doing individually to help the group. There were a lot of people passing for this one and I mentioned to them when I got the mouse back that their inability to think of something they did good reflected their own individual behavior. Even though this only really effected them for the next lesson, it was a start. They were back to being chaotic right after the social studies lesson and had a hard time lining up to go home.
The good thing is, tomorrow is a new day (as well as a half day). Tonight I've done a lot of reflecting. I feel like a lot of the day was negative. I was trying to address those who where being disruptive to others and the group as a whole. Tomorrow I am going to start out the day positively. As each student comes into the room I'm going to give them a compliment in order to let them know I do notice the things they are doing well. It seems that we often only notice the 'bad' things that the really good things get over looked. Tonight I am writing a note to each student to put in their mail. The note will say something that they do really well. For example on student "I like how you bring a lot of good energy to the class. There are a lot of students who look up to you because of your kind acts" I think doing this will also help me as a teacher see the good things about each student and it will cause me to start off tomorrow with a positive attitude!
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