Rule 1: Respect everyone!

So my field director finally made it out to observe both me and my site mate this past week. I've been trying to be tough and enforce my rules strongly so that I wouldn't have too many problems but that was all a crazy dream I guess...long story short, even if I am very good at breaking down difficult things, testing for comprehension, guiding students through practice exercises and finally bringing them to an independent activity where they can be creative, my classroom management is lousy. I need to be consistent with my rules and truly demand respect as I ask for in my class rules. I need to not only say "follow my rules" but provide a means of immediate feedback and show them that I am willing to follow through on what I say. Unfortunately, my red and yellow cards somehow went missing so I was unable to card students who were misbehaving later in the week. I guess that one class must still have them so I need to make new ones or something. It was awful. People are saying I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but I've found I need to stop listening to that. I was right before when I said I did not have the classroom I needed and now I've paid for it both in failing to keep an orderly and safe classroom and in embarrassing myself in front of my field director who proceeded to ask me questions about the noise level of all my classes (they are all noisy, but they are nothing like what I saw when he observed me) and I am all too aware that he could have really dug into me but I think his professionalism restrained him from doing so. Other teachers have assigned me assistants to do the points themselves because I'm terrible at rewarding students properly, being consistent, and working hard to keep students in line. It really really hurts but I got what I deserved for not being that authoritative figure (authoritative is not the same as authoritarian by the way, authoritative figures are demanding, but they give reasons for being demanding and are warm while authoritarian figures demand obedience without warmth). I NEED to be that teacher and right now I am not. This is an urgent thing that I must take care of and it surprises me that so many tell me to relax about it. But my field director was right: I need to be assertive and demand the respect that is mine and my students'. I am a teacher and should be treated as any other teacher here, and my students need to not only learn but have somewhere safe and orderly to learn, not the madness I witnessed on Wednesday and failed to properly address. There are no excuses for this. These are supposed to be the things that I am trained to address and I have not done so as I was trained to do.


While others think this is forgiveable for a new teacher, I do not find this forgiveable. When my students do not respect me and do not respect each other, I am not respecting their potential and their ability to do what they do for every other teacher. In the grand scheme of things, what I ask for is small and I refuse to spend anymore time listening to people who say I am too anxious and I need to just "chill out". If this is about my confidence issues, then starting now I will tell you that I've learned that I have clearer vision than I gave myself credit for and a much better understanding of where I should be than others have given me credit for. Call it intense and crazy, but I read once that lying about your strengths is still lying. I can see what I need to do and who I need to be, it's part of the job and self-awareness has always been one of my strengths. It's what allows me to see and admit that I have work to do here instead of feeling like it's "close enough". My job is to put as many things in place as I can to discourage disrespectful behavior though inevitably students will have bad days for all kinds of reasons. I am angry, but not at them and not at my field director. I am angry with myself but I also know that barb inside of me is what will push me to demand what they are capable of. They know I am kind and willing to share what I know already. Someone talked before about how my students love me, but though love and respect go hand in hand they are not the same thing and I can probably say some students have lost a lot of respect for me because I have not been the person I need to be. No more. I am laying it down clearly next class and asking for the same treatment they give their other teachers.