Today was my last day with the class from hell. One more week of meetings and social events is left, and then I can stretch my back, sleep, read, drink fruitjuice in the city centre, and sleep some more. I am so tired that I try not to put my head down during the day, because I know I won't wake up. At the same time, I am already looking forward to the new classes and subjects I wil teach next year. Isn't that strange?As I was sitting in front of the class from hell, I thought back to everything I did wrong this past year. It was my first full year in a 'regular' group of freshmen. I guess I did everything wrong I could have done wrong. Partly because the brutality of the children surprised me, but also because there were a lot of things on which I hadn't decided what to do. So I started making a list of new year's resolutions. The list will hopefully grow over the summer, and as with all new year's resolutions at least part of them I will not manage to do. But at least this will give me something to work on:
1. Get to know the students as well as possible. I want to do this by making an archive of student information, as was suggested at the website of the NEA. I will hand out cards on which they will have to fill in their name, contact information, favorite books, music and movies, and their hobbies. This will also allow me to connect more to their interests during my lessons.
2. Make a list of rules that I want to enforce in my class. For example, this year I had loads of discussions about the windows. Whenever I opened them, the kids were cold, and vice versa. In order to be able to move on with my lesson, I would then close/open the window. Next year, it will be ME who gets to decide the status of the windows.
3. Be more consequent. Duh. But how? At least I have to learn to be strict about the rules in my class. I noticed this year that once I allow minor talking going on, in the end the class ends up in a major chaos. This must not happen next year. Definately something to work on over the summer.
4. Giving clear orders. I notice myself asking the students to do something (e.g. 'would you please be quiet now'). When I attended the class of a collegue, I noticed how her different way of giving orders made the students more likely to comply: 'I now want you to take your notebooks and pens and write down what I say'.
5. Give students fixed places and don't let them change seats until winter break.
More to come! What are your resolutions for the coming year?
5 comments:
Great resolutions. Early in my career I grabbed everything I could find at the bookstore about discipline and read it. Read enough of it and some of it sticks. I'm one of those that will sit down in the book store and read 2 there, and buy 1.
Your ideas on class rules and being the "master of your domain" sound great. The best present you can give yourself and your students is structure.
BTW...I've tagged you for something. Come over and see, and thanks for the vote!
I rely a lot on home contact. All of my kids know unreasonable behavior will result in calls home detailing every grade, cut, and infraction that has occurred since time began. Or at least since the semester began.
Since they all know it, they're far more likely to act out elsewhere.
You've got a good list going there. I think I'll work on that for myself. I LOVE #4. I'm going to have to use that. One of the other things I want to do is find some quick exercises we can do when we have 5 minutes left and they want to talk. I attempted to say this is time you could work on your homework, but many would say, I'll do it later and talk now. So, I'll be replacing that with short brain buster activities or pop quizes.
~Elementary: Thanks for the tag ;)That was fun.You are so right about structure. I know the kids (and me) need it, but it's not so easy to build it from scratch. I now understand why it's called structure! As for the books, I have a whole collection that I bought over the year and want to plough through over the summer, jotting down tips and ideas.
~NYC Educator: How do you talk to the parents? On the phone of by mail?
~Proverbs: that's a good idea. I noticed that (almost) even worse than not being firm enough, having too little to do is disastrous for classroom management.
I second Proverbs 16:3 with liking #4. I think I'll use it too. Thanks.
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