Wow has this journey begun with a bang! I knew what to expect walking into 2 of my classes from last semester but I picked up 2 more. I decided to walk in my first day with an open mind. However, maybe it was too open. My first English class I had to give a student a written reprimand (PBR) for sexual harassment towards me. He is one of my alpha-males from last semester and he does things continually that keep me asking,” What can I do to get through to him?” The day did not stop from there. In my next class I had 2 transfer students who felt they had something to prove. These 2 were bright and witty, but had the attitude and demeanor of a drunken sailor. I felt horrible for my CT who tried continuously to control them but they would not let up. After multiple hall visits and even the threat of going to the student center, these 2 just kept at it. This too makes me wonder how I can reach these students. Finally, what I thought would be the highlight of my day, honors English, turned out to be chaos upon chaos. This class knew they were smarter than the others and made sure to act like it. The moment I spoke I could tell that there would be a battle to gain respect.
After my first day, I was exhausted. The only thing on my mind was the idea of returning the next day to the same situations. I felt defeated like I did not or could not find an answer to help me get through to my new and old students. I have talked with my CTs and other student teachers, their suggestions and similar situations have been a huge help in easing my mind. The only other thing that still bothers me is how to get student’s respect when they do not see you as an adult/disciplinarian figure.
As of now I am going to try to reach my students and gain their respect through the way I teach and what I teach. I am going to start off teaching technical writing to 8th grade, a CWC group and an honors group. I am going to try to get through to my difficult students by planning activities that engage them and spark interest in the subject matter. One of the first activities I have planned is a follow the directions test. This is a pre-assessment to see how well the students will do with a technical writing example that tells them to read all of the directions before doing any of them. I cannot wait to see how well this will go over when the students read the last direction that tells them to do only directions 1 and 2 (that is if they do not read the first direction as stated above and do all of the goofy stuff in between). I also have some other fun activities planned and hope they will go over well and help to distract those difficult students from acting up. I hope to be able to gain some respect from my students who do not know me, but I am still a little unsure about how to go about it. I don’t want to just be the fun teacher or the mean teacher. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to updating you all on how the rest of this journey goes and I look forward to any feedback or suggestions you may have.
