Thoughts on life, love, and politics

Why I love teaching

Well last week was just rough... There were a lot of reasons for it students misbehaving (one really, really badly!), tensions in teacher relationships, and a lot of other little things. Honestly I was kinda thinking I was a little crazy for wanting to do this for the rest of the life. But then today reminded me why I want to do this.
It all began this morning when one of my students decided it would be fun to bang his pencils together all morning. Well eventually I told him he could spend some time with me banging pencils during noon recess. Well when recess time came along he met me in the library (where all the second grade teachers meet to discuss what is going on). I had him sit on the carpet and told him to bang the carpet for five minutes without stopping. After about two minutes he stopped and complained that his arms were hurting. I said "oh my I guess we are going to have to start the time over because you stopped. Keep banging for five minutes without stopping. I am sure it is hurting your arms but I played the drums for awhile and I used to do that for 30 minutes with drum sticks so I know it won't kill you. While your doing it think about how much your banging your pencils hurts me and the rest of the class." This same scene occured a couple times. Finally he banged his pencil for five minutes straight and I told him he could go out to recess. Before he left I asked him if he was going to be banging his pencils anymore. He gave me a look of horror and shook his head no. Then I asked him if he remembered what would happen if he did it again. He replied, "I will have to do it for ten minutes." Satisfied that I had made my point and he understood I told him he could go outside and if he was a nice classmate he would inform the other students that they probably should not bang their pencils anymore as the consequences are not very pleasant. Well when the students came in from recess one of the students banged his pencil. I immeadiately looked at the recess pencil banger and asked him if he could explain to the student why that was not a good idea. He did and I did not hear another pencil bang the rest of the day!

Well the other funny thing that happened happened as the students came in from recess. My trouble maker from last week came in well after the rest of the class which means he had misbehaved somehow during recess. I asked him what he had done. He refused to tell me for quite awhile. Finally he told me. Then he lay down on the floor in the hallway, where we were talking, and refused to talk to me anymore as he rolled around. I quickly decided to leave him there since he was right outside my classroom and go teach because I was pretty confident he would come in. Sure enough he came into the classroom a few minutes later. When he came in he climbed into the closet/cupboard where their backpacks hang. The whole class looked at me wondering what I would do. I chose to ignore him and made a general announcement that we were going to do math and ignore the closet. Well soon enough we began to hear monkey sounds coming from the closet. That was to much and the class lost it. All of them were giggling. I felt like just breaking down and laughing so I went towards the closet (so I was facing away from the class) and composed myself. I then turned around with my best "teacher face" and said in my "teacher voice" that is not funny. I then turned back around to open the closet door. I saw his little chubby body curled up in the cupboard and just about lost myself to laughter. So I had to close the closet doors to collect myself so he wouldn't know I was finding this funny. I collected myself, opened the doors back up and told him he had to quit making noise. Then I turned around and continued to teach the class. Soon I saw the boy reaching into his cubby to get his gym shoes out. I turned and told him that the only students going to gym were the students in my class. I calmly continued that I was not sure if he was in my class because he wasn't doing math. "However, if you would like to be in my class and join us doing math I am sure you can go to gym with us." He quickly went back to his seat and got to work. One battle won with the kid! Later as part of math we had to color a pattern (so the pattern was more obvious) so I asked if anyone would let me color with them. This boy quickly raised his hand. So I went over and colored with him.

This post is dedicated to Dr. Bowling (an ed prof here who was my inspiration for today)
"Deep down inside young people want to please their teachers"
Dr Bowling
Last night during a class discussion on classroom managment

Hope all of you see the humor in this day that I did. I think I just have been so stressed I needed to laugh. And although this day was somewhat chaotic it was funny and is now even funnier to look back on. And you just got two stories from the day... Have a great one... and think about being a teacher!

posted by rayhe @ 8:11 pm