Two Down- 34 to go

I've been back in my classroom two weeks and things are falling into place. My students are getting used to me and I'm getting used to them. One even interrupted me ten minutes into lecture one day to ask when class would end, and did I intend to keep talking the whole time. It is amazing to me how some kids act toward a teacher. It is as if we can't do anything to affect their lives for the upcoming 180 days.

The class sizes are being adjusted with the health teacher down from 40 to the low 30's. My largest class is now at 32. But it is offset with a couple of small classes. That helps my average class size, but puts some limits on my helpfulness in the larger classes whenever individual help is needed.

Our school was just remodeled and I was rewarded with my own computer lab of 15 new Dells. I think the principal took pity on me because for the past ten years I have been supplying my own student computers through EBay. I just finished networking them and today students were able to start working with them. They are a great tool for teaching science.



Speaking of class sizes- let me finish my story from last week. Remember that this was my first full year of teaching. I don't think I mentioned that I was in a small district in Pennsylvania.

I waited for the 54 students to arrive for their first day with me. They all squeezed into my classroom. The twenty without desks stood around the back of the room. They were too shocked at the number of kids in the room to even think of throwing spitballs or kicking each other.

I "took the bull by the horns" and marched the 54 ninth graders out of my regular classroom down to the cafeteria, where I assigned two students to each lunch table. I rolled in a portable chalkboard and got ready to teach.

I actually had this situation for about a week. Not being an experienced teacher, I decided that I had to be a real prick or there was no way I could survive. The first student to start talking when I was lecturing got a severe reprimand in the form of a verbal toungue lashing, after I slammed a meter stick onto the table right in front of him. Talking was not a problem after that.

I assigned homework the second day and any student who did not have it done got chewed out in front of the class. I kept a paddle close to hand where all could see it.

I had decided that the only way to control such a large group of students, who were not academically motivated, was to be very strict and downright nasty. It worked for the first week. Then the science chairman volunteered to set up another class and took twenty of the students out of the class. I was then able to get back into a classroom and forgot about joining the army (at least for the next few weeks).

I'm not sure what had gone on behind the scenes. As a new teacher I was trying to survive. In those days it was pretty much sink or swim. The principal had put the schedule together and had messed up some classes. I suspect they were afraid of what might happen if I continued in such a difficult situation.



The joys of being a new teacher! Things are so much better for new teachers today. NOT! That everyone should want to go into teaching. YEAH, SURE! More on this topic in a future blog.