My First Week

"Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself." -John Dewey

I can hardly put words to what this week was like. But I survived! The first day was Tuesday, and it went really well. As I walked down the hallway, students in class, I thought to myself that having the students around was invigorating. Wednesday was similar to the first since we are on an A/B schedule and I was only meeting more and more students. One big event that happened on Wednesday was that a couple students in the hallway distracted my students. I was quite disappointed and stormed out of my room to stop the students (my students were doing group work), and I gave them a stern talking to. I was a force to be reckoned with. Even the teachers in the hallway were scared of me, as they told me later; I guess my point got across. No one is gonna mess with me (at least I hope that is the outcome). Then Thursday was a big ordeal in one of my classes, but for respect of my students I am not going to share details. And Friday , I followed up with the Thursday situation. My weekly count: I took away two cell phones and talked to four students about their language. Despite more behavior problems in one week than my semester of student teaching, I still love what I am doing. I accepted this job knowing that I would need to focus on my efforts in classroom management. Two people, the math dept head and the instructional coach, have been supportive and have reassured me that I am doing a good job. It has only been one week and I feel that I have made leaps and bounds in my goal of improving my classroom management.