Weirdly good lesson

[c green]

OK. So I spend all the first period of my morning core wrestling with the class from hell. By the end of it, I've sent two boys to other teacher's rooms. This is half of the quartet of students my mom calls The Four Horsemen. (Hell, or at least chaos, follows after them.)

Suddenly, the class is

a. quiet
b. in their seats
c. able to get out their books
d. able to listen to a whole lesson
e. able to do the bookwork following the lesson with only permissable moderate chatting

It was like heaven. It was so WEIRD. I got to praise the other two Horsemen for being on task! We talked about fairy tales! It was fun!

At the end of the period, I let them take a break, and the two I'd sent out came back.

Now the last lesson was social studies, and we were playing a game, so it would have been louder regardless, but chaos came back. Lots of 'please be on task' and 'Everyone stop talking. The consequences are in effect.' Over and over.

If I could just boot these two kids, plus one or two who need a more advanced class--OH, we could SOAR!

Anyway, it gave me the idea that maybe I'm not a total flop at this.

 

[CO teach]

Amazing

Isn't it amazing how one or two "bad apples" can keep the whole class off task and constantly annoying you? This year, I am lucky, but last year I had ONE kid who was constantly pushing my buttons. He would (of course) do it in front of the whole class, just to try and prove that he was in control. Anyway, when he was absent (not often enough) everything went so smoothly and at least I knew that the problem wasn't me!

Just remember today so that tomorrow when you are pulling your hair out, you'll know you aren't the issue - THEY are!

 

[sallie]

amazing but true

It is funny how 1 or 2 students can disrupt an entire class.

My teaching partner and I swapped a couple of kids in our homerooms. It is amazing how different my homeroom class is now. I love not having to see my old student 3 times a day. Once is enough.

My partner's student (who is now in my homeroom) is fine. He seems to work better in my room. My old student doesn't give my partner the attitude he gave me.

Definitely a good move.

Would you be able to do something similiar with your kiddos?