POW

So I know its been a week since I wrote in this and you are probably wondering how last Thursday went when I said I was going to take charge. Well, I dont really remember last Thursday but I am pretty sure it was a decent day. I am thinking it was the first day I sent someone in the hall to go talk to them. Yeah, it took me 9 days to send someone into the hall. It should have happened the first day and it will happen the first day this fall. Believe you me. It has to happen. I need to set an example that I am not messing around. So even though I sent a student in the hall I didnt know what to say to them. I still dont after sending multiple students in the hall and speaking to them. BUT that was a big step in my classroom management system.

So then I had this weekend where I finally took some time off from TFA and had some fun. I hung out with my friend Jill and some of her friends on Friday night and watched the movie, Take the Lead. It was pretty good and related to my life in some ways because it was about teaching at an inner city high school like I will be doing.

Speaking of my high school placement in the Fall. I was talking to some people that observed there and they told me that my school has like 70 different languages spoken there. Alot of which are from Africa and Latin America. Im pretty excited to have so many different cultures represented in my classroom. What this means for me as a teacher though is that I will have to somehow learn how to differentiate some material for those that are English Language Learners. This just means make things more visual, step by step processes, and other creative things that make learning easier for not just them but everyone. These are skills I will have to focus on in the Fall though because I think most of my kids are pretty sharp with English in my class this summer. Thats not to say they are not far behind in their vocabulary, reading, and writing skills because those are definitely lacking from my students. I plan to incorporate stuff in my lessons to address that issue too come the Fall.

So I have been really trying to implement a good classroom management structure for my class so that I can have something that works when I start in the Fall. I tried a money system where I give students fake money for doing good things and take it away for doing bad things. Well they just started stealing everyone elses money and trading money and giving it away. I scrapped that idea as soon as everyone left my classroom. The next day they were like "Where's my money". They seemed somewhat disappointed but I told them that they couldnt handle the responsibility basically. I was offering them different prizes, the best one being Astro's tickets. But that is not going to happen anymore.

It was good to have yesterday the 4th of July off but I ended up working on TFA stuff all day anyways. From 8 - 12 I had to be in sessions they setup for us and then I had a power session with my Curriculum Specialist, one of the higher ups in my school, and a couple other Corps Members (CMs). We were role-playing classroom behavior scenarios for about 3.5 hours. It was crazy, but it was good. Today I implemented alot of what I learned yesterday and it worked pretty well. I had all my students quiet for the most part and some that had been disengaged before were now engaged in the lesson and learning! One student in particular that usually causes alot of problems was quiet the whole class. They all took notes and I am hoping did well on their assessment. I ended up sending about 4 students into the hall but not at the same time of course. Two ended up going to the office and having a talk with the head administrator. So this was another crucial step in my classroom management system. The big thing that I did to start it off was to have every student shake my hand at the door and I told them that there would be total silence and that they needed to get working on their "Do Now" before the bell rang. So of course I had alot of jokers that wanted to just whiz by...well I didnt let them and if they did I made them go back out and come back in the proper way. This took about 10 minutes to get everyone in the room and silent. I had a memo on their desk detailing exactly how I expected them to act and what the consequences were if they didnt. Then we went over them and I began dealing out consequences. It was beautiful. I am definitely not perfect at classroom management by far but I am heading in the right direction and that is what is going to count for my future students who want to learn.

Thanks again for all the prayers. They are getting me through this institute for sure!

Have a great weekend.

Peace,
MO