Still beating myself up.

My 7th period has been a challenge lately. It all started when I had a sub a couple weeks ago and all hell broke loose in my classroom. (I don't mean to say that, but there really is no other description that truly fits the scenario.) From what I understand, one kid was going around punching other kids and when one of them retaliated by kicking him back, the punching kid went at him with a stapler.
Now. When I say punching and kicking and possible freaky stapling, it wasn't leaving bruises or anything, but it was horseplay that was completely inappropriate for school (or anywhere if you ask me). Apparently the sub was 19 years old and looked about 12, so her attempts to get the misbehaving boys to calm down were futile. Under some sort of divine inspiration, a math teacher came into my classroom to give me something and saw the complete anarchy and sent three boys to to the principal's office.

Yeah...

Ever since then, many of the students have been quite vocal in their disdain for a particular student or two.
This breaks my heart because I know this student would thrive under positive peer attention or feedback, but due to his behavior, he is now the enemy of the class. This doesn't help the general atmosphere of the class because he isn't a particularly quiet child and will defend himself to the death if need be.
Basically, the negative comments and energy in that class are somewhat terrifying. Therefore, I have been racking my brain for interventions to help the students in this particular period.
After talking to a teacher across the hall, I decided to put tally marks on the board and students have the chance to earn a party. For every negative comment a tally mark gets erased. At the end of the period we will count up the tally marks and when they reach a certain number, they will get a party.
I introduced this intervention today and one student lost all of the points for the class. Yikes. Something must be done!
I'll have to let you know what I decide to do about that.

I introduced this party idea about 15 minutes into the period. So, there were quite a few negative comments being thrown around before this. Finally I told a student that was talking out quite frequently that if he talked again without raising his hand and receiving permission, he would go to ISS (in school suspension). Guess what happened though. He tested my threat and I didn't follow through. It gets worse though. One student raised her hand and said, "Not to be negative, but didn't you say that if he talked again he would have to go to ISS?" I was a little in shock about that and all I could say was, "Yes I did." And that was it! I didn't do anything about it.
The rest of the period wasn't too bad, even though we lost all of the points.

After school ended, I was so distraught over my inability to follow through with a consequence, that I couldn't get any work done and I just went home and watched TV for about an hour and a half. I finally dragged myself off the couch and went to the gym and then ran to the grocery store afterwards. I was still feeling pretty bad about things though.

Are you feeling my pain? Maybe you're laughing. Or maybe you're saying, "AUDRYN. Follow through girl! You need to grow a spine!" Don't worry though - I have a possible remedy.
I confessed my pathetic inability to follow through on consequences to my roommate, a former middle school English teacher, and she came up with a solution!
She said that because I didn't say when I would send the kid to ISS, I can still follow through! She said maybe it's even better because there has been a time period for everyone to cool off and really think about what happened. So here's the plan: before 7th period tomorrow I will go tell this student that he is to go to ISS for 7th period because of his behavior the day before. He may complain, but all I have to say is that he knew what the expectation was and so he has to deal with the consequences.

:)

Maybe there's still hope for me. And for that student.

-Ms. Damron-