Reflection about Friday

1/29/11
Everyday, I’m supposed to send an email to my supervisor with a reflection about the day. I always seem to forget on Fridays. Not sure why but it’s probably because I come home and crash though I was working on it this morning and thought I would share since Friday perfectly summed up the entire week: Chaos!
Friday morning was chaos. There were 20 subs in the building so all the kids were going crazy in the halls. They also were doing Think Link testing. But during the testing the assistant principal decided to hold a Lockdown drill. No one knew it was just a drill though. The teachers all thought that they wouldn’t do this during Think Link Testing unless it was absolutely a real threat. Later we found out that the principal was gone Friday and the assistant principal thought that would be a good time to have the drill. Needless to say, the kids finished testing before we were allowed to leave the room. Seven of them were supposed to leave at 10:15 for a field trip with the Life Skills class so we didn’t want to start anything that they would have to leave during the middle of. At about 10:20 we finally decided just to start something with them because we didn’t know when the drill would be over. Five minutes later it ended and we had to take all the kids down to the bathroom. Unfortunately, all of the subs did the same thing with their classes. (There is a schedule of who can go when so that the halls don’t get overcrowded.) Well, the halls certainly got loud and crowded with so many classes in them at once. I ended up having to deal with a situation in the boys bathroom where 1 boy decided to throw water all over 2 or 3 other boys. Who knows why he did this but I suspect that the fact that there was no supervision had a lot to do with it. The sub was completely ignoring what was going on. I quickly realized I was in way over my head and got my teacher quickly. She knew the kids involved and handled the situation while I went to supervise our class in the hall. By the time we finally got back down the hall, I felt like all of the kids had taken crazy pills that morning before they came to school. It was insanity! We then had 10 minutes before we had to go back in the hall to take the class to related arts so they read Hatchet for a few minutes.
After Related Arts, there were only 20 minutes before lunch. My teacher wanted me to at least start the lesson with this class so I did. I had to chop it up and leave a lot of stuff out but by the end of the 20 minutes they had created a Key/Legend for the map and glued down the island. I didn’t realize until then how quickly 20 minutes goes by. There were also only about 10 kids in the class. When most of the class is gone, the kids who are left seem to think they’re not really in school. They talk a lot more and don’t do what they’re supposed to. That also made cramming things into 20 minutes a little more interesting.
The lesson I taught in the afternoon went much better though. I felt like it was much better than Tuesday. I told them before we started that there would be time to go to the bathroom and sharpen pencils in a few minutes. Eliminating constant questions about going to the bathroom, getting water, or sharpening pencils helped keep me from getting so distracted. I did think it was funny though that they would ask, “Is this a good time to…?” I’m glad they recognize that there are times we need to focus and times that it’s ok to leave the room. Their behavior was a lot better but I think I handled certain situations much better too.
Every time I teach, I know there are things that could be done better or differently the next time. My teacher keeps telling me that some things you can learn as you go. You see what works and what doesn’t; then you adjust accordingly. I feel like every time I teach, I’m being given ideas about how I could do it better next time. I’m trying to incorporate those ideas and suggestions because I know that I don’t know it all. Even when I’m a teacher I won’t know it all. I’m just doing the best I can