Reflections - Week of Feb. 7-11

There is a big difference this week compared to last week in terms of student behavior and responsiveness. Last week, it was as if Ms. Summers was a new teacher meeting her students for the first time. Since she was absent for much of the fall semester due to complications after surgery, her students had a number of substitute teachers who took over her classes. When she returned last Tuesday, she had to start from scratch. In many of her classes, the students adapted to the change well and there were few problems when Ms. Summers returned. Yet one class, the 9th grade ramp-up class, had a harder time. Several students in the class have discipline issues already and the inconsistency of teachers led to a lack of focus in the class. Last week was rough - the students seemed to be testing Ms. Summers and pushing the limits as much as they could. After seeing issues the first afternoon, Ms. Summers took a step back and reviewed the rules and procedures on the second day. The students did focus and little more, but still spoke out and came quite late.

On Friday, I wasn't around for the 7th period class (the second half of the ramp-up curriculum is split due to scheduling issues) but Ms. Summers went off on the students. While not a method she or I would normally encourage, the students seemed to respond to the verbal lashing and Monday was amazingly different. A large chunk of 5th period is spent on Independent Reading. On Monday, the students came in, and with only a little encouragement, got their notebooks and read quietly for almost the whole period. Tuesday was the same thing, and it has been ever since.

I'm not sure I would have gone about it the same way, but obviously something worked. Ms. Summers has much more control over all of her classes this week and it's been much more productive because of it. I know one of the problems I had last semester was that I had a hard time being tough on the students, but I have a feeling that part of that was the age of the students (they were 4th and 5th graders.) While I usually believe that if you have to yell at a class, you've already lost control, it can show that you are serious and lead to significant change. Another former supervisor yelled at her unruly class the day she returned from an absence and heard that they had behaved badly for the substitute. Consequently, the class was much better behaved when she was again absent. I think it depends on the class and how well the teacher knows that class. Ms. Summers knew that it was what her class needed, so it worked.