To Do or Not To Do

This week our blog topic is things to do or not do in the classroom.

I've learned that with the grade 7s, my personality, or how I would want to interact with them, has to come second to my authoritative teaching persona. As I documented last week, my first full lessons with the 7s totally got away from me. They were testing my boundaries and although I maintained my composure I didn't have control of the class. I was hard on myself the entire weekend. There was nausea, tears and constant mental replays of what went wrong. To come back from that experience and create a better classroom environment my AT and I decided that my next lessons with the 7s should start with a class meeting. I had them all line up in the hall and didn't let them into the class until everyone was quiet. I then sat them on the floor. I explained to them that their number one class rule is respect and that rule applies whether Mr. Latter is teaching or I am. I told them that I didn't think they had demonstrated respect to me, themselves or their drama work in the previous lesson, and outlined what I expected to change. The class meeting set the tone for the class and hopefully for my remaining lessons with them. With my increased authority and constant reinforcement of classroom management things improved significantly in my second week. The 7s will continue to be a challenge. Although I can't say that I enjoy teaching them I have definitely learned what to do in order to make it workable.

The second thing I started doing this week is writing myself little teaching scripts (how fitting of a drama teacher). Even though I'm teaching one subject, because I have 6 different grade levels there is a huge variety to what I teach. I'm using drama techniques like hot-seating that are new to me and I'm also teaching content like rap which I'm not particularly well-versed in (ha ha). By turning my lesson plans into scripts that I have on my clipboard I'm able to make sure I follow the plan and hit all my teaching points. The scrips are point form plans for the entirety of the lesson and include content that I'm covering, questions I want to ask and ways to guide their learning. I also include notes that my AT has given me as things to remember to do or not do as well as things I sometimes forget like telling them to clean up the classroom before they leave. There is just so much to remember and my scripts help keep me on track and keep my lessons running smoothly. They're also a bit of a security blanket, as knowing that I have a clear plan that I can refer to is sometimes all I need to feel comfortable and in control.

So overall week two was substantially better than week one. To be expected I suppose. Bring it on week three!