Day 514: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: control
She had to figure out some way to control this class, and fast!
It was her first day as a teacher. The previous four classes had been polite if disinterested. It was math after all.
But this class, her last class of her very first day, was out of control! Thinking back over her education classes in college, there had not been one mention of what to do in this case. Help!
They were standing on their desks, throwing pencils and paper wads at each other. One of the students was hanging out the window (when did the window get opened?) singing the Star Spangled Banner at the top of his lungs. The ruckus they were making surely could be heard all the way down the hall in the headmaster's office. They were definitely going to get her fired before she had taught a single topic. Were all seventh graders like this?
A paper wad bounced across her desk. Its placid trip across her plans for the day, the same plans for every class that had gone so well until now, made her think "I need to balance their boisterousness, like this simple paper wad dancing across my desk."
So she closed her eyes, made like a yogi on top of her own desk, and breathed deeply. She shut out the bedlam of the room, pretended she was alone with only her breath, and meditated.
Incredibly, the room became silent. The paper wads stopped flying.
The kids had been astonished into attention.
So simple!
This is my entry for @mariannewest freewrite challenge https://steempeak.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-514-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-control
I actually had an experience like this as a teacher. It wasn't my first day and it didn't all go perfectly after that, but I did manage to get some of the kids to enjoy my class and participate responsibly. They all learned the math, but they made me work really hard for it. To say classroom management was not my forte is an understatement.
Thank you for reading!
I love the autobiographical aspects. You were a teacher--cool!--my degree is in teaching high school English but there were no job openings at the time and I became a tech writer instead for the next four years. Then a stay-home mom. Then a hermit. I often think of being a substitute teacher and know that CONTROL would be my #1 challenge - and I have imagined myself standing on top of the desk threatening to do a burlesque show if they don't all pipe down and get to work. Now that I'm a grandma, that might be truly horrifying. Your yoga-Buddha pose is far more sensible. :)
Yeah teaching fun when they learn and hell on earth when they are bullying the teacher. I got better at it, but I never got it down like many teachers seem somehow to be able to do. I'm not controlling! That might have contributed to my problem.
You sound sooo much like me!
In my day all the teacher had to do was pick up the cane, that soon brought the class to attention.
My teachers had their rulers. A nice smack across the back of a hand and we were all ears.
That line reminded me of my Year 9 Social Studies class almost twenty years ago! Except the wad of paper didn't bounce across our teacher's desk... it landed square in the middle of his forehead.
(It wasn't me! I was a good girl! Until Legal Studies that is. The only teacher who had a problem with me all because I had a note to leave class early to pick my sister up from primary school. She refused to let me leave. I got up anyway because I had permission and it was my duty. Next thing I know, written on my report card was that I'm apparently violent and abusive when asked to follow school procedure. Biggest load of bollocks I've ever heard.)
Yeah I had my kids written up for highly exaggerated things too. It does so much damage to the kids. Teachers should not be grading, they can not be trusted to be fair. I don't think there should be grades. I'm starting to think there should not even be schools as we have come to know them.
I'd personally love to home-school my son but even then you're still forced to do the exact same curriculum given by the Education Department, and he's not the type of kid who can be educated by a parent; too much fooling around --he settles well for teachers. And then there's the socialising with other kids thing. The main thing I appreciate with a school. Which I probably won't appreciate once bullying rears its head. Sigh.
Our school isn't too bad though. Being a country school, they do things like agriculture and animal husbandry (not the breeding; the caring, haha!) alongside the drudgery of things that will be of no help to you in life.
Anywho!
I'm here with today's prompt :D
sounds better than the suburb schools, where they are taught how to not think and to behave like prisoners. Science especially is not taught. Thanks for the prompt I think I already did it.
Sorry! I'm still catching up. :) The prompt was posted 7 hours ago and I live in an awkward timezone where I'm always late to the party, haha.
Fashionably so though so it's ok
Haha! I remember those types of kids! Nice move from teacher!
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There wouldn't be this problem if they paddled kids, like they paddled Uncle Bruni. 🤣🤣🤣
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