One week in.

I have now completed my first week as a teacher. My first three days suprsisingly went without very many problems, and then Thursday came along. The students were upset because one of their classmates had been expelled during an earlier block for confronting the teacher, and they were definitly in a defiant mode. By the time it was my turn to teach them they were so out of control that even when I was handing out warnings, phone calls home, etc. I felt like I was being a very ineffective teacher. Right before lunch I gave them a chewing out stating that their behavior was unacceptable in my classroom and that they had now lost all priviledges to sit and work in groups and when they got back the class was going to work in silence. This was my first time having to deal with major misbehaviors from the class and it was certainly a difficult situation. However, when they got back from lunch each student was silent and worked individually without too many issues, so I guess my speech did mean something to them.

Friday morning, the 3 partner teachers and I decided that we needed to do a total discipline crackdown. When the students walked in the classroom their desks were no longer put togther in groups, but they were in rows, facing forward. We then had each student write an essay answering the following questions: 1) why are you in summer school? 2) What do you want to accomplish at the end of the summer?) and 3) who do you want to be proud of you when you accomplish it? Our hope was that they would refocus and begin to understand how their behavior in the classroom is going to affect many things in total. The rest of the day showed that they had started to think about this concept, because we had very little misbehavior issues that day. I even had some time to re-teach a few of the concepts that they had missed out on yesterday.

All together, I am really proud of my students already. Even in the short week that I have been teaching them they have shown a ton a growth in their mathematic academics. There are a few students who will catch onto a new concept pretty quickly, and then are willing to help me by teaching it to the struggling students. There is one student who is more behind than the rest, which the class is very aware of. Yesterday, he answered a pretty difficult question correctly in front of the class and everybody turned around and congratulated him, one kid even gave him a high five. Their support for each other is amazing.

They all understand the importance of their hard work too. I have started handing out extra homework that I tell them I will not grade and it is not required, but then explain that it is extra practice and thus beneficial for them to pass the test. The next day, at least half of the students consistently bring it back to me, with questions on some problems that they need answered. Some of my students have even taken to showing up half an hour early in order to get individual tutoring help. Considering we have a full hour in the morning when we give individual tutoring, their dedication to get to school even earlier blows me away.

Next Wednesday they take their mid-term, this is going to give us a measure of how much they have already taken in of the objectives we have taught thus far. This makes me excited to see how far they have come, but also nervous to see how much farther they have to go. Each of my students has amazing goals for their lives, one wants to be an engineer, one a psychologist, another a teacher, etc. I have been working so hard to make sure they pass the test at the end of the summer and it scares me that I only have about 12 more days to teach them all that they need to know. Even though it means a lot of late nights for me, as I learn more about each student individually I challenge myself to work harder and harder to make them understand.