Some days

When you work with children every day brings a new experience some good some bad. Last week was an exceptionally difficult one. One of our students was a walking time bomb. It would take very little to set her off and when she did the whole class would erupt. In our classroom there are students that can not handle yelling or crying. When she would begin to escalate some students would cover their ears and rock or cry. Others would run up to her and scream at her to stop. She was sent to the principal 5 times last week and after she left the room there was work to be done to calm down the rest of the class. I love what I am doing, but last week was a little draining and I was ready for bed by 9:00 PM every night. This week has been better and I am looking for ways to try to stop the problem before it gets out of control. This is a great learning experience and I am observing how other teachers are handling these difficulties. I am glad to be able to learn how to intercede when necessary.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

One of the things I have found interesting during my observations and student teaching time is the way that teachers try to get the students attention. In some elementary schools the teachers favor the five clap method. This usually gets the students attention and they respond pretty quickly. However if you take that method to another elementary school where the children are told to raise their hands with a peace sign to quiet their peers the students may look at you funny when you clap. There is nothing worse than doing something and find the children looking at you funny. An example of this recently was a substitute teacher in one class I was student teaching stood in front of the classroom and loudly declared "eyes up front" and began counting "three" and then she noticed that the class was silently watching her. At a loss she whispered "two, one". Their regular teacher demanded silence as soon as she said "eyes up front" and there was no counting involved.

I have found that the best and most universal way to get them to be quiet is to stop talking and stand in front of the class watching the students. It may take a minute but the class will notice that something is not right and quiet down.

I have to share with you the most effective method that I have seen is when a certain teacher stopped talking and began humming loudly while she wrote students names on the board. It only took about 10 seconds for silence to ensue. The teacher never said what she was going to do to the students whose names she had written on the board but the students didn't want to find out.