Dreadful Day, Great Day

I had an awful day in a year 2 classroom on Tuesday this week. I basically lost complete control of the class and ended up falling back on yelling at kids who wouldn't listen again. Lots of thoughts like, Why did I become a teacher again? and Who do I hate more right now--myself or these children? and How do I get to the end of the day? The guest PE teacher who was teaching them had almost as much difficulty with them.

Wednesday was a completely different day. I'd had a conversation with another teacher in the staffroom on Tuesday who said I had to establish my authority first thing, as soon as I met the kids lining up in the playground. I've heard this before in teacher's college, but something about the way she said it, or perhaps after being in the trenches awhile it finally sunk in and made sense, it was different this time.

So I headed off to my Yr 5 class on Wednesday morning, determined to try it out. I made a point of watching my assigned class for a minute or two before it was time to meet them, and trying to gauge which children to watch for. Then I went up to meet them and immediately gave the kid who was messing around the option to "stand sensibly" (a British favourite) now or practice with me at playtime. He--and everyone else--chose the first option. I had a really great day with them. I laid out my expectations really clearly first off and asked them to go over the class rules. Then I gave them a riddle to think about, and established a reward system--index cards for everyone, and the opportunity to win stamps for positive behaviours with a few prizes handed out at the end of the day for the most stamps. In truth, it was a pretty easy day: the class teacher had missed science last week because of SATs tests, and with a trip to the Royal Observatory planned for next week, the other Yr 5 teacher suggested spending the whole day doing science. So we spent the day talking about and looking at computer models of the relationship of the moon and earth to the sun, the hemispheres of the earth and the equator and the North and South Poles. Then we drew shadow landscapes. The kids were crazy to find out the answer to the riddle and I had one kid ask, "Can you come back tomorrow?" Wow. That's a first ever.

I'm hoping I can use this new insight to help improve my management techniques...I feel a bit silly it's taken me eight months to figure it out, but I guess better late than never. :)

Live and learn.