Classroom Management

688 days ago
	Ok, I will first admit that in terms of discipline I do lack a little when it comes to teaching. However, most of the times this is no problem because the kids are good natured and take relatively little correction from their teacher (ah, the benifits of teaching in Asia!). Yesterday I had one of those days where I knew what my problem was, but I also figured that at this point it had gone too far and this whole thing just escalated into one of the craziest 80 minutes that I have had recently. It isn't really as much my fault for lack of discipline as the fact that they put 4 or 5 kids in one class who need constant monitoring. Lets see, I'll start at the start (boy am I bright today!). While doing the warm up game, I realized that Wiwin, a big kid who is really hot tempered, was giving people evil stares anytime I would award another team a point. He was sitting next to Justin, an enjoyable kid but one who cannot shut up. This I suppose can be seen as really good, since they all are only allowed to speak in English. Then again, getting 100 statements an hour while trying to teach a class can drive one mentally insane. To speed things up a bit... Wiwin gave Justin a hefty punch. This is not so irregular considering who Wiwin is... now the whole class started saying "we don't like Wiwin" and this got all their tempers fired. There was no actual fighting, but kids were running around like headless chickens the whole while I was trying to sort out the near fatal attack (according to Justin) that Justin had just undergone. I moved them down to the computers and this was a chore in itself... there was some kids sitting in the computer lab at that moment and one refused to leave even though I told him many times this was not his class. He eventually budged and I was looking forward to a few moments in which nothing to radical could occur. To wrap the class up we have to talk about the week with the kids. The responses I got this week made me laugh. Upon being asked how she felt this week Chelsea said "Bad". When I asked why she looked at me, smiled, and shrugged her shoulders. I think she just liked the position of the stamp. The Boss' nephew also came out with a good line: when asked if he tried hard this week he said straight up "NO". It is appropriate seeing as the kid really doesn't give a damn and usually spends time in awe with empty space. Needless to say, I am glad it is now the weekend (although we have to work on Sunday... blasphemy!)