the first day

well, here it is. thankfully, it's very much on it's way out now.

today was the first day all year, all of last year, and from what i can remember all of my student teaching, that i felt completely lost and that the class was out of control. i had no idea what to do. the past couple days had gone very well and i wasn't ready for it either.

the morning went well, not really much foreshadowing even looking back now. then came the afternoon.

boom!

as i tried to go over the homework, nothing. i couldn't say a word without a conversation starting, or fooling around, or some idiotic question. i sat and waited, something that usually worked. but nothing. hmmmm, i thought. i lowered my voice and hoped they would get the hint. nada. hmmmm, what the hell am i going to do now?

yesterday i had accidentally lost some quizzes and had just found them. some people hadn't finished them so i decided to pass those out. quiz out, no talking. the general rule. nope, not today. for the next 20 minutes i thought. i walked around the room. i didn't tell people to be quiet or reprimand. that wasn't doing anything anyway. eventually, i took all the quizzes, gave the 3 people who were listening the whole time free time for the rest of the day (about an hour) and the rest were given an assignment.

if they talked or kept fooling around, we would get upstairs that very second and call their parents.

for the most part this finally stopped the chaos. of course you still have the students who is "innocent" and behaved himself the whole time. right. and a few other complaints, but generally this worked. the worst part is i hate doing that. it's not the right thing to do to a bunch of kids with adhd, but i couldn't think of anything else.

as i think about it right now and reflect on my mindstate, all i could think of was a consequence, negative, for their behavior.

thinking about it now, maybe they needed a break, just like me sometimes. maybe what i needed to do was play a game for few minutes.

the only problem with that is i don't know if i would be able to get them back or if the rest of the day is lost. maybe a small price to pay. maybe next time.