June 19, 2006
Wild! Wild! Wild! Just what I was afraid of. I was assigned one of the worst classes today. Having a wild class did not bother me as much as feeling powerless to do anything when the kids went wild. The assistant principal told me that if I had any problems, she would have the difficult kids removed. Unfortunately that was not the case.

After I arrived, it took about 45 minutes before the class started to get wild (led by a couple of ringleaders). Now, I know that a teacher is basically on his or her own in terms of being able to control a class. However, a lot of the power comes from the support the administration provides. Once the class started to get wild, I placed a call to the principal asking that she give me 1 or 2 minutes to just come in to help me set a tone of behavior expectation. I was only asking for a couple of minutes I would have taken things from there, but since she did not come, the kids became wilder. About a period later, I place another call to the assistant principal (when I got her answering machine, I put in the request to the main office). I asked that one of the two ringleaders be removed. One was taken out, but 15 minutes later, he returned.

Sorry, I am going to cut this short.

Basically, the class was wild. I did provide work for the kids to do, and knowing that most probably would not care, I still stayed after school to correct the papers. I ended up leaving the school at 6:30pm.

Post Date - Wednesday, June 28, 2006