Classroom Management

I mentioned in a previous post, the system that I am currently using for classroom management.  I really like the “rules” that I use here.  We spend a fair amount of time going over them at the beginning of the year and then revisit them as needed.  They are prominently displayed in the room.  Every year the class has a different flavor to it though and the system has to be tweaked.  This year we have been in school almost 1/3 of the school year and the kids just will NOT stop hitting each other.  I think it’s because, generally my class this year is really immature.  It’s usually not a major argument or fight, just the occasional “HIT”, for whatever reason.  And of course reasons really DON”T matter.  Hitting is unacceptable. 

So far I have handled episodes in house. That is, I have worked out consequences within the room, without referring anyone to the Principal.  But it hasn’t stopped, and if anything has actually escalated lately.  So today, my two most frequent culprits were actually hitting each other as I picked them up from lunch and one of them started to cry.  So I marched them over to the office and wrote them up, with the whole class watching.  One father came right down after the assistant principal called the house and picked his child up. “He will not do THAT again…..” the father said as they left.  I hope I don’t have to refer the parent to Child Protective Services, but I do want the behavior to stop and nothing I was doing in the room seemed to work. 

The assistant principal got real mad at the other one as she brought them back.  He was entering the room with a smile on his face and she thought that was inappropriate.  I had to explain that a) he was probably going to be special ed. and  b)  I don’t think the smile is defiant, I think he is a clueless little Hispanic boy (and by that I just mean that he is very limited in English) who just doesn’t understand and his response is to smile and nod at everything that’s said to him.  She thought about that for a minute and it changed her attitude a lot.

Next Week is a Four Day Week…….. for the kids.

Teachers on the other hand, have to show up on Monday, at the usual time and be bored to tears all day.  At 2:09 today, they sent out an email that said this:

On Monday we will have an all day training on Personal Narrative in the library from 8:30 – 3:16.  Please bring your Write Tools Binder. It is requested that you bring 2 sets of student samples if you have them available as we would like to quickly review writing strategies we used last year. Also, please check and let me know if you need a personal narrative insert for your Write Tools Binder.

At 2:09….. and school gets out at 3:10.

One of my favorite sayings is, “A failure to prepare on YOUR part, does not constitute an emergency on MY part.”  Heck, they knew we would be doing staff development  last spring.

And I just have oodles of  FINE examples of Narrative Writing from my kindergarteners that have been in school now for lets see…….TWENTY EIGHT days.  Some of them can even write their names.  Wanna bet, they don’t have anything else planned for the kinder and even the first grade teachers?  What a stinking waste of time Monday is going to be…….

Somethings about the beginning of the year I hate:

I’ve barely got my kids settling into the routine of school, (we were on day 18 today) and they are really pushing us to get into small group differentiated instruction.  That’s fine, but the problem is, what are the rest of the kids are doing while you are doing differentiated instruction?  They aren’t set THAT well into the routines of school yet.  Many of my kids are still coping with the sheer joy of being around a bunch of other kids for the first time in their lives in what they view as a social setting.  And I agree, they really need that socialization.  But they don’t know how to control themselves and make good choices yet.  Many of them can’t stay on task doing  their seatwork when I am NOT doing small group instruction, when I start the small group instruction, their behavior and amount of time on task will not improve.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they would let us ease into centers, but they want to micro manage the center activities as well.  They have placed so many conditions on what the centers can or cannot be that it’s almost impossible to comply.   None of the old traditional centers are good enough, or academic enough anymore, no puzzles, no housekeeping, no blocks.  During the reading block of time, the centers had better be language based.  During math, the centers have to be math.  The math centers they have for kindergarten that come with our math series, are two kid centers, take longer to explain than they do to do, and all require manipulatives.  So if my intervention group is 5 or 6 kids, that means I have to have 12 or 13 centers set up for the rest of the class, with the manipulatives all counted out……..  And of course the math lady sees nothing wrong with doing her centers during language arts and the language arts specialist really doesn’t have a problem with you doing language arts centers during math, but they really have a problem if you do something else in THEIR time block.  And anymore, you hardly can fit the required number of minutes of ANY subject into the week.

I was looking at how many conferences I need to set up for kids I have concerns about.  Nine.  Nine out of 29 kids I have concerns about how they are going to do if they don’t have some serious help at home.  And of course most of them haven’t had any of that help yet, that’s why they can’t do anything.

Humm, the non stopping, incessantly talking, jabbermouth of a new kid.

He can’t stop.

Talk, talk, talk, talk talk. interrupt, talk some more, interrupt some more, talk, talk, talk………

I told him the other day,  “I bet you would talk if there was a guy behind you with a sword to chop off your head if you talked.”

He just looked at me and then asked, “What kind of sword?”

He was in timeout for talking and interrupting and after a while I asked him if he was ready to be quiet and rejoin the group, which of course made him think he could talk…………. you know,  about talking and not talking………   So I let him stay there some more……..

Small Group, Differentiated Instruction

I have the groups all figured out.  I THOUGHT I had the center activities and seat work all figured out to keep the rest busy while I do the small group instruction.

I just can’t seem to get it to work yet.  Everyday, I get all the different things going and get ready to pull groups, and I end up managing all of the activities instead.  It’s like a juggling act, or one of those guys who balances spinning dishes on a bunch of poles.  They just can’t seem to manage on their own.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another, but I just never seem to get to the small groups.  I hate this time of year when they are SO needy, and want validation for every little PART of everything they do.  And there’s TOO many of them.  And they aren’t even potty trained.  Apparently…..

I could make the center activities easier, but then what’s the point?  The stuff needs to be hard enough for growth to occur, but easy enough that they can do it without my help.  It’s making me crazy.

Jordan the Soggy

(and yes, in case you were wondering, “Jordan” is not his real name)

Jordan is walking around this afternoon holding his shirt down in front of himself.  He seemed stunned that I would ask him if he might be a little wet……   But yes, he was.  Since it was about 10 minutes until the end of the day, I just had him sit on the tile floor and wait, rather than sit his soggy butt anywhere else.

A short time after they were dismissed, I noticed a substantial puddle on the tile where he had been sitting.  Not only was he wet, but he did it again while he was sitting there…..

Between the pee and the puke (another student and another story), we are going to have to shampoo the carpet REAL soon.

Never, in all my years teaching, have I had so much crying, puking and wetting.