Week One

So, week one of my comics workshop.

It was kinda stressful but slowly got better.  Day one was by far the worst.  The kids in my workshop are by and large good kids, and I know most of them.  However, I do have some large personalities (and large voices).  That first day was kind of a nightmare, honestly.  One boy, who had some behavior issues last year--nothing bad--has been hit with fourth grade attitude.  He was all around loud and rude, and made more than one comment about cartoons being stupid (or something to that effect--it's kind of hard to remember thanks to being upset).  He and a few other kids were just plain obnoxious for the entire hour.

Worst Day Since Yesterday

EDIT: Is it bad that I'm too lazy to go through and change all the present tense wording to past tense? I wrote this yesterday but forgot to post. Blegh.

Really, what can be more embarrassing than having a half-dozen teachers and aides witness a class full of kindergartners pushing your buttons thoroughly until you explode? To be honest, I really couldn't say.

In my last post, I declared that there was a new contender for the title of "the Challengers". Well the  kindergartners aren't giving up their title so easily. As you might have guessed, I've had a vexing time today (and I'm not even getting into the standardized testing going on right now--I'm testing a group to help out).

To start us off, I was informed that there was a new student, a quiet and sullen little boy standing near the back of the line. Then, one of my usual troublesome boys was really acting up; I left him sitting outside the office where he--I am sure--promptly fell asleep (I think he needs it anyhow).

I had a nice long talk with the kids about their previous behavior, and they were quite eager to offer up reasons the class didn't go well and how they could change that. Of course, there was plenty of chit-chat and interruptions galore. Nothing said penetrated their brains, I am certain, except for those precious few whom give me no real trouble on most days.

At first, they were marginally well behaved. But by the end of class, well... I didn't lose it like I would have at the beginning of the year, but I felt as though I could have.

Maybe I should have closed the curtains entirely (it really kind if stinks being on display for anyone passing through the cafeteria) and stood quietly while they went insane. Maybe that would have made an impression. I don't know. All I know is that I'm at my wit's end, and summer vacation has never sounded sweeter.

The No Good, Very Bad Day (but at Least it Wasn't Raining)

I think my kindergartners have a contender for the title of "The Challengers". I have just finished royally chewing out my 1st graders. And I gnawed a little on the fourth graders the other art teacher has (using my classroom). The poor things looked a little shocked, but they were treating their sub quite rudely.

Deep breathes, Underwood. Deep breathes.

Been having trouble with this class for several weeks now (since Christmas in fact), and they've had several instances of very disruptive behavior which was addressed first by putting their heads down and then by writing, as in this post.

Today was just the icing on the cake, the proverbial straw, my last nerve et cetera et cetera.  To even be heard (because counting down, ringing the bell, and standing quietly waiting for silence did little to provoke much more than several shushes and a return to previous deafening levels of sound) I had to yell so loudly they probably heard me the next county over. I marched them back into the hall to line up and chewed them out (which was witnessed by their teacher to boot). The final verdict is that they will no longer be doing art, they will be writing about art instead.

Joy.

Now I'm at the kindergarten, and these kids have been hit with a serious case of Spring craziness. I tried, but nothing was getting done. We came outside instead much like the other classes (as much because of general insanity as because the teachers are having a meeting).

The sun is shining, there's a nice cool breeze (80 degree weather this week, geeze), and this group of kids will be having art tomorrow, too, so why not?

Attitude!

Just recently I have decided that I need only 3 rules for my classroom:

#1 - Have a good attitude.

#2 - TRY.

#3 - Have fun!  (Okay so this last one is silly, but I like it and think it's still important.)

No. 2 has been an unofficial rule for most of the year, something that I have continuously pounded into my students' heads.  But the first really only occurred to me after today.  Attitude is important!  Of course I knew this; so do most people, if only in an abstract, back of the mind sort of way.  It may go by a different name or phrase -- we routinely admonish the kids to "make good choices".

This week my kids have had a free-draw day, earned each 9 weeks through good behavior.  But today's 1st graders have had somewhat appalling behavior since Christmas, and as a consequence, they lost their free day.  Now, as it so happens, I had nothing planned for this eventuality.  So I got out a quote on attitude, one that my college mentor teacher gave to recalcitrant students to copy.  I had the children sit quietly with their heads down while I explained to them exactly why they didn't get free day.  Then I read the quote:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes. -- Charles R. Swindoll

 I feel that this quote is something of a truism, and I was really getting into it.  After reading it aloud, I further expounded upon how important having a good attitude was.  I'll admit I was on a bit of a tear (they've been incredibly frustrating for months now--talking, sniping, arguing, tattling, the list goes on).  I wasn't shouting, but I was loud and rather vehement, gesturing and pacing through the room.  And I'm not sure why (or even if I wasn't imagining things), but it seemed to me that for once the kids were actually taking in what I was saying instead of letting it go in one ear and out the other.  Time will tell, I guess.

And then they spent the rest of the class copying that quote.

Now, having thought back about today and how thoroughly I lectured my students, I've thought about how this all applies to me, not just in my teaching but in my life.  Attitude really is one of the most important things in life, and I think it's something that one should always try to keep in mind.

As an instructor of small children, I know that how I feel has immediate effect on my students.  If I am unenthusiastic, so will they be.  I've noticed that my students are always more difficult to keep on task if I'm feeling low energy or low on excitement.  And it makes it hard.  But I also know that if I just take a few minutes before class to breathe, and to do whatever I need to do to change my attitude, the whole day just brightens.  Both my students and I will have much more fun.  Sometimes, I just need to do something utterly silly like wave my hands wildly in the air and jump up and down or have a quick stretch.  It wakes me up!  (Sorry, theater person here; we do crazy warm ups like that.)  Or maybe I'll read a bit of an interesting article or funny anecdote.  Sometimes I start the class speaking with a silly accent; giggling kindergartners can really lift my mood.  But if I ignore my less than wonderful attitude, I end the day feeling disillusioned, exhausted and put out.

It's something to think about.  If I police my current attitude and try to keep to a positive outlook, will things go more smoothly, even when they don't?  I'm not sure, but I think that it will at least make me feel better, more productive, and more fulfilled.

I have been incredibly remiss in regularly updating my reflections these last couple of months!  Shame on me.

It always seems that when I feel like there's something to reflect on and blog about, I never have immediate access to my blog.  I suppose it shouldn't matter; for example, at the moment of writing this entry, I am using Notepad, to be copy-pasted at a later time.  Doesn't seem all that difficult, I know.  But somewhere in the grand scope of things, it just didn't occur to me to do it, or it became an excuse not to write.  In short, I've been lazy.

But my New Year's resolution is to STOP--being lazy, that is.

The week following the holidays was quite slow and easy; the kids (all but one class) had earned free days for the 9 week period, so every class got to have free time while I kicked back and putzed around at my desk.  Not exactly the most stellar method of getting back into the swing of things.  It is now our second week back, and I have managed to kick some of the laziness in the butt.  I have some great lessons with my kids--unfortunately, I still end up dragging because I'm just not getting enough sleep.  Going to bed in a timely manner is perhaps my most difficult challenge!  But I've got to do it.

This week, my kids are doing the following:

K - Non-objective dot pictures.  They have a lot of fun with it, and it kind of builds on the book we read before the holidays (the Dot).  Today I even had a couple kinders who used the term as an answer to a question (correctly, if you don't count actually saying the word right), and I was thrilled to death!  I have no idea what I'm going to do with my 2-day a week kindergartners, but I have until Friday to figure it out.

1 - These guys are making ROBOTS.  They love robots, so dropping names like R2D2 and Optimus Prime or Bumblebee gets them all sorts of excited.  What this lesson involves is looking at a print of a robot sculpture I have (it is made from things like retro TVs--very cool) and identifying basic shapes therein.  Then we talk about how robots can look any way they want, not just humanoid, or rather "people-shaped", and how shapes could be put together in fun ways to make a robot.  Yesterday was the guinea pig class, and they got it, but there was a distinct lack of imagination and a lot more "copy completely or partially the teacher's example and the picture on the board and the stuff in Transformers".  I was a little disappointed, but it went okay.  Today though?  They blew my mind.  I did a demo on the board (and erased afterwords) and we talked about thinking.  In otherwords, think about what your robot looks like.  Can it fly?  Does it have arms?  A head or face?  Wheels?  Absolutely NO copying something they've seen before.  They had some incredibly detailed and imaginative robots at the end of class, and I can't wait to take these pre-sketches and make some awesome robots next week.

2 - Now, the second graders are probably completly exhasperated with me as we still have to finish the snowflake mobiles we started before the break.  Right now they are more snowflake and less mobile.  But we'll be finishing them up this week, and I will hang them from the ceiling (where they will likely remain right up until Spring Break, lol).k

3 - Third grade is currently in the midst of my "baby", that is, the unit I created as an assignment during my student teaching.  They are into the third and final project of the unit, the Laurel Burch project.  This week, we looked at and discussed some of the artist's work and discussed how she used color, line and pattern to convey emotion to the viewer.  We talked about themes, in this case friendship, and did a brainstorming worksheet.  On this worksheet, we all brainstormed 8 friendship action words like play and hug.  Then the kids had to assign each word an emotion and each emotion a corresponding color, line, and pattern.  Not everyone finished, but that will be for next week.  The backside of the worksheet contains two areas for pre-sketches, which they will be required to complete before they can start the drawing on their 12x18 paper.

In other news, the Challengers are once again challenging me--go figure.

My classes with them have not been as incredibly frustrating as they were before (this may be due to a return to a more, shall we say, hard-nosed approach wherein I give out sad faces and sad notes at the drop of a hat), but nonetheless, they frustrate me.  I don't know what it is about my kids, this class in particular, that makes me lose it and be all raised voice grrr.  But I do.  Today I had to kick out a child in my class--twice, no less--and it was the same one who got removed to the office for dumping 2/3 of my table supplies on the floor and throwing markers.  I started the class by dropping him outside the office as we passed because he was doing his usual messing with the other kids acting up thing and told him to come to class when he felt ready.  He came back about halfway through and got to work.  Had one marker thrown, but otherwise okay. 

Then he started acting up more, so he along with some others ended up with a sad face.  then he got a sad note and began to throw a small fit that included the shoving of my marker bin across the table.  Where it not for the presence of other kids around the table, it probably would have ended up on the floor.  this was about five minutes to the end of class, but I sent him to the office anyway to sit outside. he dragged feet all the way to the end of the cafeteria (so of course now I'm having to shout across the caf at him) and basically doing everything he can to not actually leave.  An aid happened to be going that way, and she had to walk him out.

Okay, so now I've got to settle the rest of the class (who always take any opportunity to chatter that they can) and get them lined up and back to their home room.  Goes just fine.  After this, I sat and talked with my little trouble-maker.  It didn't do much good, as he really couldn't get past the stage of crying and protesting that he didn't "want a sad note!"  I explained why he was getting one, but I'm not sure he actually payed any attention.  He really just didn't want one, and I don't think this particular kiddo really got why what he did was against the rules.

He is honestly my most challenging student as far as behavior goes.  And I know that I'm not handling it correctly.  Problem is, it's proving to be incredibly difficult to change how I behave when confronted with his misbehaviors.  Part of the problem is that the whole class is kind of wild, so taking the time to deal with one student seems to give them cart blanche to go wild.  But really, I just need to stop and breathe.  I need to THINK before I react. Gah.  Back to the drawing board.

A week or two ago, we had to submit our professional development plans for the year.  As always, my mind is occupied by a certain kindergarten class and their vexing and stroke-inducing behavior.  Now that we are in the second 9 weeks, I have this class twice a week--needless to say I am ever so excited. Putting sarcasm aside for a moment, I have to say that I genuinely like these kids on an individual (and occasionally small group) level.  Together, however, they are...wild, to put it mildly.

Naturally, my PD Plan for the year revolves around the theme of classroom management.  This class--which has brought me to the point of tears, which has made me laugh, which has both darkened and brightened my day--is my challenge. 

For the last week or so, I have been scouring the internet looking for solutions other teachers of kindergartners have implement in their classrooms, trying to find ideas that I can use.  Effective ones, hopefully.  I also stumbled upon this site:  Dr. Mac's Behavior Management Site.  So far, I am liking the strategies I've been reading about.  Therefore, I'm going to start implementing some and see how things pan out.

As you can probably guess, I will be focusing especially on that class.  If I succeed with that class, I can succeed with any class. That's the feeling I get.  Plus, I want very much to be able to do projects on the same level I do with the other classes.

For example, at the moment I am doing collage with my two 2-day/week classes.  Or, I was.  The first class, probably one of my best behaved groups of kindergartners, are doing an 18x24 collage of a pumpkin patch.  They are all working in "teams", with each table forming a team.  It's challenging for them because they have to share so much.  They can't claim a pumpkin as their own. They can't claim the paper they tear as their own.  The result is some squabbling and some whining, but the result, I think, will be a good one, even if the project itself isn't up to par.  They need to experience such a large-scale group project.

Now the next class (and lets call them the Challengers for future reference) were going to do smaller collages, working in pairs.  I thought better of myself when I actually had them.  I know that they are not ready for dealing with this particular project.  I had them do individual pumpkin drawings.  They aren't doing torn paper collage because the mess would be incredible.  I would see glue painted on people, on the table...the possibilities are endless (there's a reason they are banned from painting for the foreseeable future).  However, I told them that we would try a team collage around Christmas--if their behavior improves.  That's my goal.

This week, the strategy I'm going to employ is "catching them being good".  Basically, much subtle (or more blatant for the little ones) positive reinforcement.  Having read some of the experiences of other teachers utilizing this (even with what were considered "bad" classes), I feel like it might have some very positive effects.  I'll keep up with it for a few weeks to see how it works.

When we return from Thanksgiving Break (everyone will be starting fresh on projects and such), I am also going to go with something I read on a message board and change my class stars system to see how it works.  Currently, the class starts with four stars and loses stars for misbehavior.  I'm going to try letting them earn stars instead, with up to 4 stars possible during class.  Since our classes are forty minutes long, that means every 10 minutes I will evaluate class behavior and determine whether or not they have earned a star.  I'm going to tell the kids that they can politely remind me if I forget to evaluate for now, but in the future, I may try a timer if I'm having problems remembering.  It depends.  I think this will mesh better with my star board system, too, wherein the kids earn a star for good behavior and get a prize every third star.  Generally, the behavior of my kids at the 1-4 building is pretty good, but I'm hoping this will further improve some undesirable behaviors.