So today my students had completely forgotten all of the procedures we had practiced. My colleagues say that it is common after a substitute. Anyway, I sent my first student to the office today ever. I was teaching and out of nowhere I had a student that left the classroom and ran outside. Our school doors automatically lock so it was a security risk. We are technically supposed to call the police but I decided to get someone to go get him and that I would keep teaching. When the whole thing was over, I asked him why he decided to do this. He had a response, "I was just playing." I could feel the tension rising in my head and I had to take a time out to prevent myself from strangling the kid. I calmly told him that he knows the rules and he knows the consequences and he chose incorrectly. He cried the entire way down to the office but went. At this moment, I had just introduced centers for the first time so things were caotic anyway.
Of course also at this very moment, the people who were supposed to observe me, came in and heard what had happened and told me that they would come back another day. Thank you:) So that is how the entire day went. I had 10 children in for recess and I don't keep kids in for recess because I need the break. However, my discipline system said that any infractions that get to the level of think time happen at recess. I even had my most well behaved kids in. It was just a bad day. I had two students bawling because they were missing recess (boys and girls). But they have got to learn procedures and rules in order to learn anything. When I was student teaching, anytime I saw a crying student I would rush over and fond over. Being a teacher, unless the child is hurt, you learn to ignore it because it is a way they think to get out of things, such as consequences. We couldn't have circle time, long math, they ended up writing goals instead of the original plan. We ended up watching, "The Letter Factory," a phonics lesson and I came up with an activity to go along with it. They loved it! They seemed to have already known the songs from it. It was the first time that day where I relaxed.
Then I sent them home, most of them with sad notes (per my discipline system) hoping to just relax. When I came back, I found a parent in my room wanting to discuss her student's lack of progress. She did not look happy. Yesterday, we learned how to deal with irate parents and I was not in the mood. I was emotionally drained from my students that I just wanted to sleep. Nevertheless, I greeted her warmly, we went over her son's grades and I could tell she was not into it. So I asked her if she had any concerns. Of which she replied that her son has severe ADHD she thinks and they can't handle him at home. He is one of my hardest kids as well so I empathized. We could not come up with a solution because her son kept displaying the behavior we were discussing and we couldn't stay on the task at hand. We agreed to both do some research, she would take him to a few specialists and we would reconvene in two weeks.
I finally got a second to relax and work on something and the whole day just hit me. I decided to leave earlier and relax at home. I hope today was just a fluke and they are back to my good class tomorrow. I also added more things to my room, mostly so I don't get marked down for anything. I think I only have to finish my job chart and my room is pretty much how I want it, at least this year.
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