This was my third week of takeover and I am absolutely exhausted. Well… I wasn’t exhausted at the end of the day Monday through Wednesday, but today I am exhausted. It is amazing how one day can be absolutely perfect and the next day can be complete chaos.
Today, my students were incredibly chatty, off-task and irritating. When they weren’t fighting with one another, they were trading bracelets and passing notes. I felt like my head was going to explode with how much discipline I had to do, while still maintaining my composure and the purpose of each lesson. Even still, I made it through the day.
On Wednesday I had a pretty great teaching moment. A student who is constantly a behavior problem was ignoring my instructions to do his work all week. I have started to refuse to send him to the office anymore because I know that he just wants to get out of class. At the end of the day yesterday, I asked him to get out his science folder. When he claimed he lost it, I grabbed it out of his desk. As I grabbed it, about 10 broken pencils fell onto the floor. Not only was his science folder full of incomplete worksheets, but he had also wasted the entire day breaking his supplies (that his mother had recently bought him) into bits and pieces. Fed up with his blatant disrespect for myself and for his school supplies, I told him to go get his agenda book. I grabbed the tape dispenser and taped the broken shrapnel into his agenda book and wrote, “Stephen has had a busy day making these. I hope that he can explain to you why. – Miss S.” All the students in the classroom became silent. Someone whispered “Oh, that’s bad…” and my student looked at me with absolute terror. I had just made an impact on him.
Even though this week was long and the kids were difficult, I have really come to understand the “starting over” aspect of teaching. Every day, hour, minute and second I am resetting myself to be the best teacher I can be—regardless of what any of the students have done throughout the day. And they know that, which is even cooler. After disciplining a student 10+ times today, she yelled out, “Have a great day, Miss S!” as she was getting on her bus. I was surprised that she was even talking to me, but she made me realize that the students are also resetting themselves with me every day, hour, minute and second that I am their teacher.
Today was tough, but if I made any impact on any student at all—it was a worthwhile day of learning.