Moving Forward

Today, I forgot to tell him I was proud of him. "Get out of my face" student made a good decision today. During afternoon homeroom, the class was not following the rules, so I took away their afternoon snack. When this student realized he was not getting a snack, he stood up and walked over to the bag of snacks. I stepped in his way and smiled at him. He looked at me, sighed, and walked back to his seat. And I forgot to tell him I was proud of him for making that decision.

My day was easier than I expected at times, and harder than I expected at other times. My double period class did a good job on the lab, although they needed a lot of prodding to keep them on task. They have a habit of spending a lot of time chatting, and then copying each others' work to catch up. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. They are getting the work done, but it's not entirely their own. Although, I shared work back when I was in school. I think I'll appreciate the effort for now, and work on their doing more work independently. Small steps. They even pestered me about doing more work on their SF projects. Okay!

My homeroom class was harder than expected. They had a test today, so I thought it would be easy. Right? Nope. At the start of the class, I had to break up a girl fight before it started in the hallway, while trying to keep the curious class in the classroom. While handing out tests. I ended up sending two kids to their mentor's classroom to take the test, two kids to the guidance counselor to take the test, and talking one kid out of storming out of the classroom. Eventually, though, I got them all silently working. I didn't look at the tests yet, but I have a good feeling (and lower expectations).

My last class, which was the one I had trouble with yesterday, was actually pretty good. They weren't great, but I got stuff done with them. Adviser was there during that class, so I was working extra hard on all of the specific advice I was given. And, of course, it worked. It really worked. I got through almost an entire lesson, and even handled an ice cream cake distraction halfway through the period. In a moment of daytime self-reflection, I came up with this description of my management skills, which directly correlate to class behavior:


















Now, it's an early weekend! I'm signing off until next week to celebrate Veteran's Day the way it should be celebrated: by sleeping late, getting a manicure, putting my pajamas back on, and watching TV. Thank you to those who have fought to protect my right to enjoy these indulgences.

I'm letting the bad things bother me less and the good things make me happy. And after he spoke to Principal, Adviser promised me I wouldn't get fired any time soon. Like my dad said, the most important piece of job feedback I get is deposited into my bank account every other Friday (or Thursday, in case of holiday, like this week).