Happy 101!

I missed the 100th post, so now I'm celebrating the 101st. And you know what? It was a great day today.

A day off from students helped a lot with my stress levels. I had a full day training, and believe it or not, it was really useful. In fact, of all the PD I've had since I started this shindig in June, this was the most helpful. It helped that I had a couple of months under my belt.

We spent the entire day talking about classroom management. The program was run by a small Cuban man who sprinkled his speech with Spanish expressions, and made me realize that I don't often find native Spanish-speakers giving workshops and lessons. Hopefully, I'll change that, one student at a time. He was part of a UCLA classroom management program, that used to be a Brown classroom management program until money ran out there. The program has an office in Trumbull, and although he taught and administrated there, he grew up in Bridgeport. I wish he could talk to my classes about hard work and success.

The day was mostly marked by group discussions about what has worked and what hasn't, and I learned some new techniques to try, but we were given a lot of valuable advice as well. We were also given a book (Fred Jones' Tools for Teaching), which I've found immensely helpful since I read half of it this afternoon. It's written in the Idiot's Guide format, which involves humorous anecdotes, cartoons, and specific advice. It outlined specific scenarios that I've been unable to handle in my classroom (e.g. handling the "Explosive Student" and talking back), and gave advice on how to handle them. The book is most useful because it follows the following pattern:

1. Here's how to set up the classroom to avoid behavior problems.
2. If that doesn't work perfectly, here's how to solve small behavior problems before they get out of hand.
3. If that doesn't work perfectly, here's how to solve big behavior problems.

I have to admit that I skipped right to the solving behavior problems, because that is what I need help with right now.

The biggest piece of advice that the speaker gave us is to pick our battles, and pick ones we can win. My goal is to pick a new battle, one thing to improve on, every day or week or month. This week, I will take what I learned from the book about not showing frustration when kids are pushing my buttons. I will work on standing up straight, taking a deep breath, making eye contact, and NOT RESPONDING when they talk back. I will not get angry, not raise my voice, and not join in their childish banter.

He also gave us other suggestions, such as a great way to illustrate a multi-step process on a permanent poster that we can hang up during certain lessons or units, which I think will help in my Physical Science class.

This afternoon, I got ahead on planning. I also got an email reminding me about payday this Friday--I had forgotten! What a nice surprise! This will be my first "regular" paycheck, and it's a few dollars more than I expected. It's nice to know, but I bet the money will be going into my classroom anyway. I just ordered a copy of October Sky to help get my kids revved up about Science Fair.

As I learned from a chef on Chopped, "Don't forget the 7 P's: Proper prior preparation prevents piss-poor performance."