Saturday, August 15

Do I LOOK mean?



I have been teaching for two weeks. Within those two weeks, two kids have cried in my class; on seperate occasions. One of two things is happening here: those kids are sensitive or I am one scary pregnant lady! I know I'm hard on them, but it's for their (and mine) own good.

Fifth grade is oldest grade for them, they rule the school. Next year, they're off to middle school and it's only going to get tougher from there. They can't be coddled anymore. Besides, I get the impression their fourth grade teachers allowed those kids to walk all over them. Last year, fourth grade was kind of a train wreck. Three out of four of those teachers either quit or requested to be moved out of the grade level.

It turns out, I think I do well with unruly kids, at least on the elementary level. My mentor teacher says I have good classroom management. In all reality, I think I'm just blessed to have such a good class for my first year of teaching. I think Heavenly Father just knew I needed to have a patient, understanding class, especially this year, with the baby coming and all.

I'm really not a mean person; I just have to be stern with them or else they won't listen to me. At least those kids started crying while they were telling me the truth and not because I was yelling at them. I'll let up on them later on anyway.

This is my teaching face and it's actually is pretty effective. It gets the job done, and the room gets deathly silent once the face is used. Hopefully, it keeps its effectiveness til the end of the year.

4 comments:

Trish said...

Well I don't feel so bad anymore. I've had kids start crying in my classes but its usually the kindergartners or 1st grade. I firmly believe that kids need boundaries, and they need to know what those boundaries are. They need to know when they have stepped over the line. It doesn't mean you have to strangle them when they do, but there is just too much of that softy-ness going around I think. That is what you reserve for your own kids, when they are being good. So, yeah I agree with your "face" as you called it.

Alisa said...

Ha ha! Your teaching posts have been making me laugh out loud, seriously!!! I bet you are a kick-a teacher! Let's get together sometime soon! I want to hear how your pregnancy is going!

Sarah & Andrew said...

You sound like you know what you're doing. It took me too long to figure out the secret of classroom management was sternness. :)

Nat said...

We decided that is a very intimidating teacher face. Isaac said it's the female version of "Mr. Ratburn." (Do you watch Arthur?) He's the dreaded, stern, difficult 4th grade teacher.