Monday, October 13, 2008

Substitute again today.

Mrs. D has had three subs the last three days due to conferences, homecoming, and such. It's been good practice for running a whole day's worth of classes. The school day goes by quicker when you're a teacher than when you're a student. 6th hour always comes around faster than I expect it to.

Today, the class and collaborated to set the Rules for Discussion. I just need to type them out now to be able to hand them back to the class. We're going to discuss drama tomorrow, so I needed to get the class thinking about discussion and how they are going to react to each other. It took the whole period to come up with the rules and the consequence for breaking those rules. I was actually surprised how many students supported taking away points for breaking the rules.

One of the students had some disruptive behavior in class today, so I finally chose to send her to the hallway after waiting patiently for her to quiet down. The entire class was telling her to be quiet, but she still continued to mumble a long, ongoing rant. I got a little firm with her, and called her mother. Here's the clincher: her mother called me out and asked me all these questions about my disciplinary style. Parents have every right to do this (especially because I'm a student teacher); I just didn't expect it. Overall, the conversation was very productive.

I'm starting to become more confident. I'm growing. I'm learning. The proper reactions/responses are coming more naturally to me now. I am going to be a "hard" teacher one day--I know that. But hopefully I'll challenge students to better themselves and to grow intellectually. The good days make the bad days worth it.

And, I still need to work on:
-Planning further ahead.
-record keeping
-having optional work for the students with special learning needs
-having available late work ready to give to students who are absent.

1 comment:

Kelly said...

Are you meaner yet? You need to be meaner.