It's Mrs. Hart not Amy

              Time seems to go by so fast. I can’t believe I have been teaching for a month now. I am really excited to be teaching a novel study along with doing test review for the state assessment. My students seem to be doing well, but I still have a few challenges. I continue to struggle to reach those few students who need to have the control of the classroom. I try to be the disciplinarian however being so close to their age I am still finding it difficult for them to take me seriously. I am working on when I say I am going to do something, I do it. But what else can I do? I have given lunch detentions, taken pencils away until they had to do their work, sent kids out of the room to be refocused, and even called home. This seems to be a never ending battle and I am starting to feel defeated. I think the worst thing that I have still not been able to correct is one student who finds it necessary to address me by my first name. When I introduced myself to the class at the beginning of the semester I told them my name was Mrs. Hart. I have not told anyone my first name but my id badge says first and last name. This student either just trying to be smart or just plain out being disrespectful refuses to stop calling me by my first name. I have asked and told him my name is Mrs. Hart. Today, when he decided to call me by my first name, I pretended I didn’t hear him. He repeated my name again and I responded, “Does anyone know of a student named Amy because I don’t know of any Amys in this class.” This made the class laugh a little but I am scared to think that this is all he was wanting. I know this isn’t really a serious problem in some people’s eyes but this is a problem to me. If I have a student trying to call me by my first name, I feel that it is not helping my quest to gain respect. Any suggestions on what I can do or say would be greatly appreciated. With all of this drama I am afraid to look in the mirror because I don’t want to find any grey hairs.

                On a brighter note, I am glad to say that state assessments are soon approaching. I have been doing some really fun things to help the students review. We have played a couple different jeopardy games and a lot of different games on our new smartboard. I have a ton of resources for activities with the smartboard thanks to my CT, so shoot me a line if you need any fun things to help with review items for Language arts state assessments. I used most of my materials for 8^th graders, but I know all of them can be adapted in some way to help different grade levels. More and more each day, I am looking forward to state assessment and can’t wait to see how well my students will do. I will continue to keep everyone update and look forward to any and all suggestions.