Reflection 3/28/05-4/1/05

I had the best class period and the worst class period this week. On Monday, we started the poetry unit. I was nervous because some of the initial reactions to poetry were negative. I handed out and read one of my favorite pieces - a slam poem by Steve Colman entitled, "I Wanna Poem." The students were very receptive. It was like someone replaced my class with kids I had never seen before. We actually had a class wide discussion about what poetry was. Granted, a few kids still did not participate, but many did. It was exciting. Their enthusiasm has actually made me more excited about teaching poetry.

On the other hand, 5th period Thursday was a low point in all of my teaching experience. A fight broke out in our classroom between two students. It had been building for some time and one of the boys snapped after the other said something to him yet again. I ran to find security, but they were gone. We got another (large, male) teacher to pull them apart. Both boys were banged up, but mostly okay. It took me well over an hour to calm down. I wish I had known more about what to do in this situation, but rarely does a student teacher get that information. I am not upset about what I did - it made sense - but I wish I could have done more. There was no way I could pull them apart, so I concentrated on making the other students safe and getting help. On Friday, many of us were still shaken up. The boy who said the comment was in our classroom again, although we had been promised he would be suspended (it is not his first infraction.) But, there he was. Fortunately, the other boy was not in school that day, although he sent a note to Ms. Summers, apologizing for what he had done. The student has been switched out of two of his classes to keep them apart and hopefully this will help the situation.