Overwhelmed, party of one
I've been trying for two days now to articulate what my life has been like. Since most of my "readers" are either busy themselves or ignoring me, I figured no one would care overly much, but I thought I'd try and get it out there anyway, in case someone is paying attention.
First of all, I really love everyone that I work with. They have been nothing but nice to me, and always asking me how I'm doing. I was able to express myself a few times and, even if I was saying stupid newbie things, they still let me have my piece before they told me that I was wrong or it wouldn't work. And they'd tell me why. How nice.
Secondly, freshmen are the best. They're so cute, and eager to please. Even if some of them DIDN'T do the summer reading, they feel pretty bad about it. And they learn quickly--oh, wait, she won't let us leave if we're not all seated when the bell rings. So smart.
Thirdly, my seniors are going to be hell. They think I have too many rules for seniors, they're pissed that I'm making them sit in assigned seats, and they don't want to do anything that might possibly resemble homework. I haven't put together my list of consequences for breaking class rules yet; I want to talk to my mentor (another peach, btw) about it. I don't want to give detentions for missing assignments, but I feel it might have to be the thing with these folks.
Some of my students live in my town and know where I live because of my brother. I'm not sure what to do about this...what do I do if they show up at my house, vicious intending or not? Need to talk to the mentor about that too.
I want to go to bed now.
3 Comments:
Detentions for homework purposes may work for some but unless it's some college prep class, some still won't give two craps. Speaking as someone who has his home invaded by my father's work (and sometimes my mother's but that's another story) I would limit contact with students outside class as much as possible. I think if they really don't understand the homework they maybe can call before 9 or whatever but just to visit... Violent students should have the cops called on them...
Hi Karen,
It sounds like you're doing just fine. Don't worry, seniors are assholes. They won't do anything to you though, especially since it's your parents' house. I don't really have time to type more but relax and it'll all fall into place, I swear.
Having fun in Kuwait right now myself. When we get the plane to Iraq I'll be able to get in touch with you about that letter writing thing.
Take care :)
Hon, don't worry, you'll figure it out. Probably the best thing to do, if you're going to give detentions out and the like, is to start off hard. Show them you're not fooling around. Reward them for good behaviour, punish them for bad. Sadly, today's youth need to be trained in the pavlovian fashion, because it's not really about education in public schools - it's about running the place like a business, training kids to get high CAPT scores, and making sure they do just enough that you don't have to deal with them for more than four years. Too bad you can't taze them when they don't do their homework....
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