I feel like a teacher, FINALLY

He didn't come back. We have a different classroom. We are actually teaching, I no longer have the horrible teacher guilt that I used to have, however, I have a very strong suspicion that due to all the stress from the first trimester, I now have an ulcer. (Still waiting to hear what the doctor has to say)

But, he didn't come back. I no longer dread being in the classroom, or waking up and going to work every day. I think about the 'difficult' friends that I had last year when I was student teaching and I have to laugh at myself. I thought those children were difficult! I didn't know the half of it.

We now have one difficult child. Me and my co teacher switch off days on who will be with him the whole day and then the other will teach. He needs the constant attention of an adult. Even when he is right in front of me he does things to other students. It just boggles the mind that I need to have him close to me at all times and make sure that there are no other students near him.

Because we have him separated from the community and he gets a 10 minute break every hour, I feel that at the beginning of this year he felt in so much control that he began to refuse to do any sort of work (except for math because he apparently really likes it). We tried many different strategies to get him to write, cutting back on the amount of work he needed to do, alternating writing, he writes one word and then I write one word but he would say "No". I never realized how much emotion that one little word would cause me to feel. How is a little seven year old child going to tell me "no"? When I would insist, he began running out of the classroom. (before the winter break we had a lock installed on the closet door because both children would get upset and run in there and refuse to come out) Now, because of the lock he would run around the school. We know have our very own code page to inform the whole school that he is out and running and enlist the help of teachers who are not busy. Yes we have already used it.

This past Monday was particularly difficult. My co-teacher was out sick so he did not have the undivided attention of an adult. We don't know what set him off but he began throwing things around the classroom and we had to call a male teacher who is usually able to control him to remove him from the classroom. He spent most of his lunch and recess time in the office kicking at anything he could reach with his feet.

That afternoon I had a meeting with his guardians. 2 hours long. We came to a behavior plan that would be in place at school and at home and I think that he needed to see that both his guardians and his teachers are a team and he can not get away with anything. I think that I needed that meeting too. I needed to see and learn more about how they interacted with him at home , which basically was, not taking any of his crap.

So far this approach has worked. I remind him "You do not say 'no' to me and I will be informing your guardians of every time you say that to me" I feel like a new person and a new teacher.

This was one part of my teaching that I was never fully comfortable with, being the authority figure and laying down the rules and following through. I feel like at the beginning of the school year I still was a bit unsure of myself, but now, my two rules are "you do not say no to me, and you do what I say the FIRST time I tell you."

I feel optimistic about the weeks to come, (not to mention a 3 week spring break!) Hopefully my optimism remains!