Crazy two days...wow

Wow. Yesterday was interesting, but I told myself that I would only write every other day because I was tired. If I would have known what type of day I was going to have today, then I would have saved one entire entry just dedicated to today. I am going to briefly go over some of the highlights from yesterday, and then I am going to talk about the craziness that made today the hardest and most challenging of my days as a teacher so far.

Yesterday was pretty straightforward: I had my inclusion classes, so I co-taught Math 1 and Math 2. The interesting moment came when a student implied that I was not Black. Wow. I mean, you hear that it happens, and the possibility that it might happen definitely came up in training; however, it did not really register that it would happen until it happened. Before I addressed the student, my co-teacher checked her and told her that she better not ever be disrespectful like that again and made her apologize. I made sure to show the students that the comment did not affect emotionally; rather than taking it personally, I viewed it as disrespectful interaction that was unacceptable. At the end of class, I smiled and said, “Power to the people, Sista!” as she left the classroom. She smiled.

Later on in the period, a student walked into the classroom (this is the one without an actual door) and just sat down. I approached and asked him where he was supposed to be, and then told him to leave the classroom. As my co-teacher also started walking over, he said, “that man got a big dot on his head” and then ran away. I started to run after him, and then thought that I should stay in the classroom and continue with the student with whom I was working. After two more seconds, though, I decided that I was tired of kids saying stuff and running away; therefore, I stepped into the hallway and asked the hall monitor to get his name. Unfortunately, he had already made it down the hallway. I returned to the student I was working with before the distraction. Seeing her get the problems correct made me happy again, and I gave her a high five in order to celebrate her success.

Those were some of the main highlights from yesterday. Now, let me talk about today.

There were just too many things going on, so I’m going to try to move more quickly through them that so that this post does not go on forever. Like I said, this was the first day that I felt that I had a “bad” day, but hey, it happens.

I started off with my first period study skills class. I had to pull two kids out to talk to them about attitudes. I actually had to put one of the kids out of my class. I felt really bad about this because I really hate putting students out of class. It takes them away from instruction, and they just get further and further behind. Yet, in terms of the situation, it was the next step on my list of consequences and I had to address the behavior. I do need to find a better way to invest the students in the class. Some of the students are really invested, whereas other students feel that they do not need the extra help in math.

Now, let’s fast forward to the end of the day: my social skills class. I was actually really excited about this class. When they came in, I had jazz playing (yay Pandora!), and I was welcoming the students. Besides the standards, warm up, and instructional agenda posted on the board, I also had the words, “Hi. My name is Mr. Seegars, and I am excited to be here!” This was a play off of an exercise that we did the first day in which each student stood up, said his or her name, and said that they were happy to be there. We then each clapped and said “Hi [insert name]”. Corny? Yes. Did it get them energize? Yes, too. ☺

So, today they were coming in with that on the board, the jazz music, and me welcoming them with a smile. The class got off to a great start. I told them that I would be giving them individual reading diagnostics in order to see where they were. I then remarked that I had to know where they were currently in order for me to tailor things toward their instructional levels so that we could make some big reading and writing gains for the year. They were receptive to this, and so it seemed like it would be a good class period. I started off their exercise with the Declaration of Independence (they worked on that while they were not being tested), and then began calling students up individually to start the reading diagnostic. Things were going smoothly…at first.

After about 25 minutes, there was a knock on the door. It was a student, escorted by two teachers, who was late to my classroom. They were telling him that he needed to be there, but he did not want to be there. I welcomed him, and told him to please come in. He did not want to. He came back a little later (escorted again), and then a teacher came and helped him get him situated. Long story short, the next thing I know, a student was getting into it with him, I had to hold her back from getting into a physical altercation with him. In the meantime, another new student (also late), was instigating; therefore, I had to call him outside while I talked to the other girl. As I calmed her down and tried to figure out what was going on, I had to call another student outside. Then I had to go in the classroom and manage a shouting match between new and old students. It was as if everything we had discussed in terms of classroom culture was not sticking. By the end of the period, two of the students got up and left out of the classroom, and all I could do was just say, “truancy.”

At the end of the period, I had another conversation about classroom culture with the students. I explained that some people may have offended some students in some way but that they had to trust me to deal with—they could not take things into their own hands. It is my duty, I explained, to make the classroom not only a productive learning environment, but also a safe environment. Needless to say, I did not finish any of the diagnostics. I ended the classroom feeling worn out and terrible. I felt like it was just out of control.

No day is perfect, and I will definitely learn from my mistakes of today. Although I thought I had great classroom culture, it was more fragile than I expected. I think for this class, just like the study skills class, I need rethink some of my investment strategies and come up with more ways to positively reinforce the students.

Until next time, peace.