Today was not a good day at all. I feel like I'm in crisis mode where if I don't get the class under control, we won't learn anything all year. I have a wonderful coworker who took me to another school to introduce me to her mentor teacher and we talked for a while. She even gave me some manipulatives to use with one particular student. I'm so grateful to have her support, especially when there are some really fake teachers I work with who are waiting and hoping for me to fail. That's been hard to face, but I'll let God take care of them.
So, what am I going to do tomorrow? We're going to completely redesign the classroom. I'll be moving my carpet to a new location so I can move my desks around. We'll be facing a different board, and I'll be stripping down the class rules to make new ones. I'm also getting rid of some levels on the behavior chart so the students have less chances and reach more severe consequences quicker. Basically, I've been told that I have to be a drill sergeant. It's gonna be a challenge for me but I'm going to do my best. I'll keep building relationships, but the fun has to be sucked out of the room for now because my kids can't handle having fun. It's hard to say that but everyone can see they're not ready for fun, and they're not ready for lots of choice.
I was able to reward my students who are able to make strong choices with fun while those who made poor choices watched the others have fun. I'm gonna keep working on that...it's just hard when I can only be in one place at one time.
My head is spinning with so many ideas that are always shared, and I'm overwhelmed. I feel like I keep changing something everyday, but my kids keep giving me reason to. For every thing I come up with, they come up with a counter behavior for it. Somehow someway I have to show them that I'm the boss and I run the show, not them. *sigh* Let's see how tomorrow goes....
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