Wow, whatever happened between yesterday afternoon, and walking into the classroom today, we (the students and the teachers) seemed a little bit different. The substitute teacher and I talked about doing some mini-activity, interspersed between teaching and guiding, to remind the kids that they need to focus on the teacher with listening and thinking skills in order to work. She was quite the genius! For instance, she got the microphone on and made sure that she would always be heard around the classroom. For another, she played Simon Says first, so that kids would activate those listening skills without having to be told to. And thirdly, she combined both.
In order to be dismissed for recess, she told the kids they had to watch her to know who could leave first. She called out the first table's number, who went to the closet like usual. Then she waited...and held up three of her fingers--table 3. Not saying a word. The students felt silly for being caught out, and sat down again until she dismissed them.
She showed me that creating order didn't have to be a command. It simply had to be understood to be followed. She played with them even as she managed them. That doesn't mean she didn't show her displeasure when a kid acted up. She came down hard on Joseph because he back-talked me when I told him he had to give a sheet to his classmate (whom he'd purposely avoided, and the student HAD called out he still needed a sheet). "You do not talk to a teacher that way!" I was too appalled to even speak. She made him apologize to me, then said, "You can do your job right or I can give it to someone who will." He--reluctantly--gave the sheet to the classmate.
I can feel how second-fiddle I am to the other teachers. And I'm still very reactive--reactive as in 'I need to help every single child with every single problem!!!'. One request for a bandaid is ok. More than one child needing a bandaid for a hang-nail? Falling for another trick.
If I'm going to teach effectively, I cannot be absorbed into each child's individual well-being. Yes, I must reach them at their level. Yet it should be for every single dilemma. I was tired after seeing them off to P.E. and getting a chance to sit down. I joked to the substitute teacher that "they run around like chickens with their heads cut off!"
I stopped.
It wasn't them running around.
It had been ME.
Going to each table. Physically inserting myself between students so they would stop goofing off. Standing over (or squatting with) students so they would do their work instead of playing with whatever was in their hand. Taking pens away (after the teacher had warned them that if they had to be told a second time, they would be treated like kindergarteners and have it taken away). Even small tugs of war with kids because they wouldn't give it to me. (Those were eventually solved when I just stood there. Hardly recommended though.)
Micro-managing them, because they were not managing themselves.
Oh, how I have been played.
I need to reel myself back in a bit. Hold them to expectations because I know they can do it, not because I think they can't. My actions had indeed shown them that I didn't think they could manage themselves. So they didn't. Was it conscious on their part? Probably not. But did it end up with me trying to fill every vacuum of each disengaged child? Very much so.
"The onus is on them to do the right thing," the teacher told me again and again.
And...I ended up not implementing the Lesson That Would Change Their Minds. The more my mind expanded on it, the less viable it became. A class book would take time to introduce, to enjoy, to build up together. I don't have to cram change down their throats. Or scrabble for every bit of respect from them either. I'm upset with myself, but it's come with a deeper awareness.
I was expecting too little from them.
I was expecting too little from myself while doing too much of the little things for them. That's not a teacher I would want to be.
As I've told myself after hearing it from one of our professors, "I'll teach the hell out of the class!" Not to break the kids, but to empower them upwards, past their egos and their doubts. Because that's the only way to get the best from myself.
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