Classroom Management

For my first Treehouse lesson I attempted to be the nice cool teacher who would let them do cool things, and not tell them off. I somehow believed that as long as I was really entertaining the children would sit there fixated and listen to every word I say.

Boy was I wrong

There was jumping on the tables, throwing of books, fighting, and a general disregard for anything that I had to say. Naturally I sought help from by co-teacher who advised me to divide them into two teams and play them off against each other. Rewards them with stars for good behaviour, and take them away if the children are behaving badly. She also told me that I had to be stricter with them as well.

Naturally they had told us all about this so called star reward system during training, but one of my assessors had advised me not to use it during training because they wouldn't understand. The teacher who I had observed before me also didn't use it, so I hadn't given it ago until now.

So yesterday I gave it a go during class.

And it worked like magic.

I was actually quite shocked. Even the terrible child who had been throwing his book across the classroom (Who I had thought of as my nemesis) was sitting there wrapped. Waiting in anticipation to answer a question so that he could gain a point for his team. Even I began to have fun. Every time a child would misbehave I would threaten to take a star away.

“Oh is Aaron being silly, looks like bye bye star.”

The children would then scream. “No no, no bye bye star.”

While the other team would yell. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

I even made sure to erase the stars slowly for a dramatic effect. It was even quite fun to watch them react like something was dying.

I was master of the stars.

To be honest the teaching is going a bit better, but Hess rules my life at the moment. I now lie awake at night thinking.

“They can't write their name, why can't they write their name? I have to make them practice it more?”

“I don't think Kevin understands anything I'm saying, I'll have to drill him more.”

“I have to do something for fun time, what can I do for fun time?”

It's only been four days, but I already feel like I've been there forever. Tomorrow is Friday so I'm super excited, but I'm going to do an observation for treehouse which will make my day seem a lot longer.