Yesterday was a fairly horrible day. In first period, one of my students absolutely refused to do any work. He played with his "finger boards" the ENTIRE period. In my second period, two boys were being totally disrespectful: throwing pencils at each other, throwing paper and binders, not following directions, totally off-task, punching each other...Ug. Plus, second period was just a little rowdy in general.
To make things better, I had three volunteers from BYU in my classroom. How embarrassing! I had warned them that second period was kind of crazy, but when all the students had left, they said, "We don't know how you would have managed without us!"
Yeah...it gets tricky.
Third period I didn't get to do the lesson I had prepared because one of the students was missing. There are only four students in the class, so when one is missing, it's a big deal. So I had them to do some other things. PLUS time I felt like I was running from student to student and not accomplishing anything. Fourth period was much better, but by that time I was just tired! I wanted to call in sick and go home and get in bed!
This morning I had to intervene. I couldn't have another day like yesterday! So I said a very heartfelt prayer and asked that the non-compliant student in first period would do work and the two boys in second period would be good...etc.
Guess what?! (I'll bet you don't even have to guess, we all know prayer works!) Today was wonderful. That student in first period did THREE assignments. And they were poetry assignments! He wrote...well, I wrote while he dictated and played with his finger boards...two haikus, two quantrains, and a free verse (which is 16 lines if you didn't know). I was really impressed. Second period the two boys hardly talked to each other and everyone seemed to be on-task! I even got to help a couple of students study because I wasn't running around getting assignments for kids, answering questions, and keeping students on-task.
During second period, one of the particularly naughty boys asked if I could pull him out of his 5th period (art) so that he could work on assignments. I told him I would think about it. After lunch, he found me and pestered me again. I told him he should do his assignments during Resource Learning and PLUS time. He still wanted to work in my classroom though, so I told him I would pull him out half way through the period.
Another student needed to finish a math assignment before tomorrow and he worked on science for the entire period that he was in my classroom. So, I had two students in my classroom during my prep. Some teachers might complain, but it actually made me happy that they feel comfortable coming to me for help.
So here's Tender Moment #1: While I was at my desk and the student doing his math assignments was...doing his math assignment, he looked in my direction and said something. I thought he had a math question, so I asked what he needed. He said, "Oh - I don't need anything. I just wanted to say thank-you." My heart did a little happy dance right there. It was so sincere and cute. :)
Tender Moment #2: Then after school, I was driving to an appointment and I saw the second student who was working in my classroom. He said, "Thanks for letting me come into your room."
Two very simple statements, but they made me feel good about my day today. Teaching really is the best. :)
-Ms. Damron-
No comments:
Post a Comment