It is days like today that I live for in the teaching world. These are the days when your kids actually "get it" and realize that school can be fun when they are not having the endure the wraths of punnishment all day!! Yesterday was not a smooth running day. No way, at all. It was a constant battle to get the kids to behave. By the end of the day, all students had produced an essay on what the word respect means in our classroom (one to one and half pages handwritten-remember there are no computers here) and an apology letter to the other teacher for taking up her valuable planning time. Many of my kids chose not to act like the ages they were and I send them to the little kid room to teach them how to behave! If they are going to act like kindergarteners, I am going to put them in a kindergartener desk!! Oh, and beyond having to write an apology letter to the other teacher, I made them stay after school and one by one all deliver it. They wasted so much of my time yesterday that I decided to waste theirs. Many of my students have chores to do and I knew that the parents would come looking if I kept them long enough. I am proud to say that all but one of my kids went in and aplogized properly. One had to try it twice and one's apology letter was a bit pretencious and artifical. ( I really wanted to use the word phoececious there but I have absolutely no idea how to spell it and my dictionary is at school) I have made copies of everything and have them in files. Little do they know that I am going to use their essays on respect next week for an english lesson because they need help on the 6 traits!! I know, that is very teachery of me to tie in a discipline item to a lesson the next week to follow up on. Very sneaky of me but very standards based and educational.
I am proud to say that my kids kept almost all of their recess time today and were able to enjoy it! I had to call one dad to ask him to come and babysit his child who couldn't remember that slamming their hand on a desk to "catch a fly" is not appropriate behavior. The flys are annoying for sure but they are a part of the farm. If there are cows, chickens and hogs on a farm, there are surley going to be flies. I just had a random thought about my sentence related to my English that I have been teaching for the past week. Bizarre. Anyway, this is the same behavior that this student was kicked out of my class yesterday for. They also got to go sit in the kindergarten chair. However, they shaped up their attitude and were one of the better students in the afternoon. I love when parents come and chastize their children and then it makes a difference. I have a lot of parental support for the discipline I impliment onto their children. It's wonderful.
YAY FOR GREAT DAYS!!! I always prefer to have these kind of days. I am more productive and less tired at the end of the day.
Your are just meant to be a teacher. I am just so proud of you and enjoy reading your adventures in teaching which are so practical and matter of fact. Hugs, MOM
ReplyDeleteand some go by faster than others. I survived the first 3 days of the new school year! Praise God for that. It sure is different having 10 less first year student in my class. I even had them remove 5 desks so now the class has more room. The beginning of the year is always hardest for new teachers because they have to lay down the ground rules and establish athority befor they can be known as the fun loving teacher that you are. I think of you often. I told my students about you and they were excited for you. And so am I
ReplyDeleteFrau Emery
Thank you for the words of encouragement. I have gone through some of the hardest days of teaching these past few weeks and I know that there are more to come. I really do love my students even though they drive me crazy some of the thime. I struggle with all of the worksheets they are required to do and how to insert the creative side of teaching into my daily lessons. It is coming though and I am renewed each weekend with excitement with what I am planning. We had one really awesome day last week and even my students said "wow, this was a really fun day!!" The other teacher and I were doing the happy dance at the end of the day.
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