This week was parent-teacher conference. From 3:15 till 7:30, I sat in the cafeteria with all the other teacher, waiting for my students and their parents to come over and talk to me. Out of 87 students, 48 parents came. That is a pretty good ratio, especially since I was advised by other teachers and administrators not to expect more than 40% of parents to come. In the 4 hours, I hardly got a moment's rest. While I had been scared before the conferencing started, I quickly realized that most parents are on my side. Most of them supported my classroom management and grading choices. They were able to see how their student had earned the grade they had according to the effort they had put in. **Sigh** What a relief! There was only one mom who acted like I was the culprit for her son's bad grades. "My son is getting A's in all his other classes; why are you giving him a D?!" Hm, while her son loves to read, unfortunately you can't just read to earn an A in my class. Oh well, 1 out of 48 is pretty good.
I also had an epiphany while in my 8th period class. There I was, getting all frustrated and upset once again that they were talking non-stop. Without even realizing what I was saying, I said, "Why wont you guys stop talking!?" From somewhere in the room, some snarky student replied, "Because you react." **Lightbulb moment!** As soon as he said that I realized something: the consequence for my students talking and being disruptive should not be more stress for me. No, no, no. The consequence should effect them, not me. I am in control and need to make sure they feel the consequence, not me. So, I have changed my tactic. Instead of getting upset, I'm either going to give them a pop quiz that will probably hurt their grade, or I am just going to give them less time to finish something. For example, yesterday they were talking while I was explaining the creative writing assignment. I didn't get upset, I just waited, and I warned them that they were taking away their own time to work and that the expectation for them to write a full page and a half was still there. While the other classes had gotten a full 30 minutes to work on it, they only got 20 because they had wasted time with talking. I am hoping that this idea works better, because I cant afford to get stress wrinkle on my forehead just from this one class.
And of course, I have some simple pleasures from the week:
- Honestly, I love my job. Of course it is stressful. And it is always interesting working with other people's kids. But I feel blessed to have found something I am good at and love doing.
- Yesterday, one of my students came up to me and told me he had written a poem. IT WAS A LOVE POEM! Talk about ridiculously cute and....ridiculous! :) It was actually pretty good for being a 12 year-old's perspective of love.
- Another one of my students sent me an email that contained the "first chapter" of a book he is writing. I wont go into detail about it (incase any of you try to sneak his budding, creative genius), but I will inform you that it has Mr. Hamburger as the protagonist. Yes....
- We started a new book project for the term, and it seems that my students are pretty excited about it. Some of the girls in my 7th and 8th period class even decided to stay in from their 5 minute break to come talk to me about books. Yay!
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