Tag: behaviour management

i am justified

jetty sea dawn landscape
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Did I come down way too hard?

Did I nit-pick?

Did I strike unfairly or

Was I justified?

Sometimes all it takes is one

Person to confirm your thoughts,

That it was wrong the way

That person acted in your class.

You’re justified,

So take a breath

And never fear that you are bad.

I sometimes worry that I am picking on a student. Sometimes we get off on the wrong foot and it can be easy to think that person is bad for the rest of their lives. So it really is relieving to hear someone say that you were justified in your actions.

I have one student who is really disruptive and I sent her to another room because I just couldn’t teach with her in my own. She made out that I was rude and picking on her and I questioned myself for a moment.

However, when the other teacher brought her back for a restorative conversation she was pretty shocked about this student’s attitude.

It was really helpful to hear this other teacher talk to the student, and also to know that I was justified in my actions. Sometimes it just takes one person to tell you that you are doing things right and you stop feeling like you are horrible or that you are doing things wrong.

I guess this is applicable in so many areas in life. To hear that you are doing OK is all that is needed to push you onwards.

Much Love

Rachel xx

double whammy

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The cruelest thing in life

Is the gut punch of the double whammy,

When you’re already late and it starts to rain,

Or there’s nowhere to park and your tights have laddered

Or you have a crap lesson then you don’t get an invite

To the job that you wanted with all of your heart.

Then twists and it spirals til you’re down on the floor

Unsure you can do this for one moment more.

So today, I got an email from a school that I loved and I went to look around and it told me that they have looked at my application and they don’t want to interview me. Then, I went into the lesson and got told that it was basically a load of crap.

I could have handled one of those things, but double whammies are just too much. It’s like getting kicked, dropping to the floor and then being kicked again. It’s pretty hard to get up from that.

In true Rachel style, I then burst into tears and cried on my observing teacher for an hour and then went to professional studies and sat in the corner crying for another hour.

The problem with a double whammy, for me, is the fact that it tends to open up wounds that have nothing to do with what is going on in the foreground. I went from ‘oh, I didn’t get the interview’ to ‘I’m a waste of air and space and don’t deserve to be alive in the space of 10 seconds.

I’m now having an ice lolly and I’ll go for a run and hopefully, by the time I get up in the morning, normal service will have resumed.

Love from a bit of a Loser,

Rachel xx

oh, the shame

It makes my face burn hot, red with shame

As I peer through classroom doors

And see those shouts, the language too.

I didn’t bring them up this way,

To drag my name through sludgy mud

And make that dirt stick to my skin.

Now, I’ve just started my second teaching placement at the same school that my son goes to. He is in Year 11 so I’ve not seen him in lessons but I have been told by staff that he is ‘a lovely boy’. And I’m glad to hear that because I’d feel really let down if I knew he was misbehaving.

But there are some kids that I teach that have absolutely no respect for teachers, they refuse to open their books and get writing, they roll their eyes when you ask them to do something and they seem to think rules don’t apply to them.

I look at these kids and I wonder what their parents would think if they were to come in and watch a lesson. Would they actually care? And what do they teach their kids at home to make them think that their behaviour is acceptable in school?

I wonder if they would feel any shame? I would love to get them in for a lesson without their kids knowing just so they can see what we have to put up with. I wish that they could teach their kids some manners.

I’ll get off my soapbox now. But I am very angry after a day of being ignored by teenagers. God, I feel old!

Much Love

Rachel xx