just another manic monday. - the bangles

This is slightly unorthodox, but today was wretched so I feel that it deserves its own post.

Well. I thought I lost control of my 9th graders a week or two ago. That little episode cannot even compare with what happened today. Basically, my Chatty Cathy class was chatty to the extreme today. By that I mean: 2 verbal warnings. Then a mark on the board (standing for 1 minute after the lunch bell till they got to go eat lunch). Then another mark.

Then 3. More. Marks.

All this while I was trying to get them to do a group reading of the short story.

Anyway, I found myself working in a group, while the 2 other adults were working with 2 other groups, so that we were all completely engrossed in dragging them through the story when the lunch bell rang.

My students vanished. I was left with just a couple lingering behind. They eventually left too - and then it was just me, staring at my marks on the board and feeling any shred of a sentiment that I am a teacher who follows through on what she says vaporize into the suddenly empty room.

And then the tears came. I tried to hold them back, but I was so upset that I couldn't get them to pay attention today and that they seemed to respect me so little. Good thing my cooperating teacher was there to encourage me and give me a much needed hug and good advice to make sure I let every student know that I would still make good on my promise to give them consequences for being so booger-y earlier (to put it VERY VERY mildly).

I let them know after lunch that they got lucky since I was working with a group and lost track of time. I had them serve 2 1/2 minutes of silence after the bell rang at the end of the hour. They will serve the other 2 1/2 minutes of silence on Wednesday when I see their class again. And I can assure them and myself that I will NOT forget next time they're rowdy before lunch. Few things speak to kids as much as denying lunch for a minute or two.

But I confess that I was most hurt today by recognizing the simple truth that I am such a passive person and this passivity is working against me as a teacher.

It's so easy at times like this to wish I was different. I want to cope with the frustration of failure by curling up inside myself and numbing the pain to the old familiar tune of, "If only I were ___________ instead of _________." If only I were bold instead of meek. If only I were loud instead of quiet. If only I were funny instead of goofy. If only I were confident instead of hesitant. Etc.

Succumbing to berating myself, however, never fixes the problem. "Duh." Here's what will fix my particular problem, or at least aid in the eventual fixing:

A pause.

Regathering of my strength and focus.

Prayer.

New plans.

Moving forward.

Ignoring the desire to whine about my personality.

Reveling in the fact that, as Anne so wisely learned, "tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it."

Basically, today I learned that my 9th graders are just not mature enough to handle any group or pair work. For the next several class periods, until I see improvement, they will have to deal with an ironclad structured classroom. Whatever it takes to establish myself as the boss and the law. I don't like it, but I'm going to do it so that, by the end of my time with them, we can move past this immaturity to something far more interesting and exciting.

In college, education professors like to focus on what I call the "fluff" of education - Web 2.0 tools instead of books, for example, along with sweet stories of reaching difficult kids and not giving zeros as grades. The truth is, those folks have been out of the regular classroom for Way Too Long. They have forgotten, or pushed to the back of their minds, the significance of first establishing control and management over the classroom. If you don't have control, you can have the coolest lesson in the world, and you'll never get to see it happen. First things first - establish authority and procedures for learning. Hopefully it won't take the rest of the semester for these students to straighten up and move past the madness to take some responsibility over their learning in my class.