Today's word of the day, legerity.
Yesterday, I felt nonplus while subbing the class from hell. I was questioning whether or not I should be a teacher since my classroom management (or lack of) was apparent. Reflecting on yesterday's challenging classroom, I should have been legerity as I am with behavioral therapy. As a behavioral therapist, one needs to record the ABCs, the antecedent (the action before the behavior), the behavior, and the consequence. While I was subbing, I was caught up in the behavior (in my case, students were fighting, and talking). I wanted to extinguish the consequence (most of time, taking away their recess, telling the students to get back to work, redirecting them to another activity were among the many strategies I used to reduce the behavior from repeating).
Other classroom teachers complimented me on how my students were able to walk in a line, noting it was the best they have seen in a long time. Another classroom teacher whom I send students that were misbehaving said I did an excellent job and that it was not my fault. She also noted previous substitute teachers for this class breaking out in tears. Thankfully, I remained I was non-reactive. Toward the end of the day, the principal asked how was the class, I had a short pause and replied by saying, "It was a great learning experience." I guess the principal was anticipating for me to say "the class was interesting" what other substitute teachers would say. I then noted that the students were bright and had the potential to succeed. The smile on her face gave a sense of appreciation and relief that they assigned a substitute teacher that could handle a difficult situation.
Leaving the war-zone with battle scars, I survived a day from hell. Being in war, I seen brothers fighting against brothers, cries of students screaming "be quiet," students talking over each other. It was something horrific to see and experience but I guess every teacher needs to experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment