Teachers are role models. Despite frustrations that may arise between a teacher and their students, educators should always model the behavior they expect the students to adopt as well.

“Don’t leave the class yourself to show your disapproval of student behavior. They need your consistent message that you will work through such problems as a group” (Cushman, 2003, p.51).

Continue reading Adulting by example →

You go home exhausted, wondering why you ever chose teaching as a career. The next day you’re back in the classroom and your soaring. You feel you could teach forever (Brown & Knowles, 2007, p. 2).

As much as I would want to pick a quote that summarizes and puts the message of this article into action ‑ a great article that can be used to help teachers who work with teenagers create classroom environments that are safe, structured, and demonstrate respect between the teachers and the students and in between the students, I had to stick with this one. Throughout the course, we have discussed who our students are, how they might behave, how they might like to behave, strategies to engage them, etc. I think this is a good time, now that we are closing off the semester, to reflect on ourselves, the educators. It’s the perfect “treat yoself” with a reflection moment to rethink, reevaluate, and remember why we choose this career. Continue reading Slay or be slayed. →

If Mrs. Allgood is harsh or punitive to Mark for breaking the rule, he says to himself, “This class isn’t safe; she isn’t honoring the contract.” Continue reading Safe and Structured →

“We don’t have the impulse and control that you have. We are acting out so that you will provide us with safety and structure-be soft yet firm-so that we can learn the behavior we need to learn to be happy and successful.”(Smith & Lambert, 2008, p.19)

This quote reminded me of what a student told me recently when I asked him if he had any advice I could use next year. His response was: “Show confidence, because students, including myself, are going to want to test you. They will misbehave to get attention”. His response and Smith & Lambert’s quote made me wonder: “how many times have I passed this test? How many times have I failed it?” This is a question I’ll have to figure out an answer for on my own, however, I am grateful for the opportunity to have met one student that showed me I can pass these “tests”. His name is Jorge, and he is the type of student who needs to be challenged more than his peers, or he will become bored and disruptive. Although he is intelligent and grasps the material easily, his behavior at the beginning of the semester got in the way of his learning and my instruction, so I talked to my CT and my supervisor about what to do in this situation. They both told me that good teachers know how to bring out the best in their students, that if I talked to him like an adult, he would behave like one, and it was true. I changed my way of approaching his bad behavior; whenever he misbehaved, instead of giving him warnings and then asking him to step out of the classroom, I invited him to meet with me after class and after school several times. Thanks to his cooperation, I discovered a different side of Jorge. After a few weeks of getting to know him better, I could see that his behavior problems arose from the need to be noticed, so I created opportunities for him to have attention, but in a positive and useful way for the rest of his classmates. I made him group leader; assigned him presentations to show what he already knew before we learned it in class, constantly gave him positive reinforcement, and his attitude changed. Jorge is now my best student in this class and his grades have improved tremendously. Thanks to him and all the challenging situations I went through this semester, I feel more prepared to face difficulties in my classrooms next semester and as a teacher next September.