Testing your Authority on Random Students

OK, so something a little amusing...

One aspect of our framework sessions in Summer Institute is all about classroom management.  So, things like developing and enforcing rules and procedures, creating a "No Excuses" environment, having a positive culture of respect and achievement.  We spent a good amount of time last Friday talking about how to develop and use authority in the classroom.  Working on our "Teacher Looks", that wonky evil-eye you give a student to make them stop talking, and how to give commands, rather than requests (such as, "Open your books to p. 55", rather than "OK, class, can you please go ahead and just open up your books for me to p. 55").

One thing that our Fellow Advisor (FA) told us just had us cracking-up.  She talked about how when she was a new teacher, she worked to develop her authority, her own teacher look and voice, etc.  She said that even still, she will just practice asserting her authority on random students in the hall way, sometimes just to see if it works.  If she sees some student she doesn't know in the hall, she might tell him or her to "Pick up that piece of paper on the floor" and then see if the student does it, and most of the time they do! I just thought this was hilarious, and this is a woman who is also very polite and respectful so I did not take it as her just being on a crazy power trip. 

So Tuesday, during Practice Teaching, I had my own opportunity to practice asserting authority on a random student. And it worked!  There was a student in the hall, slowly coming back from a bathroom break.  He was busy looking in the windows of another classroom, waving at his friends in there.  So I went up to him and asked him, politely but firmly, "Where are you supposed to be?" He said, "my class".  So I told him to get there, now.  And he did it!  I was so proud of myself, and I also proved to myself that I really can be firm and commanding without raising my voice, or having to be overly aggressive, which would not suite my personality.

So anyway, it was a little victory I had and it gave me more confidence in my role as the authority figure in the classroom.

Challenges of ELL students

I mentioned previously that during Summer Institute, I am spending half of my day doing Practice Teaching (PT) with a summer school program.  This is intended to give Teaching Fellows a brief, but intensive, introduction to the classroom.  I work with a Cooperating Teacher (CT), a veteran teacher who acts as a mentor as well as an evaluator of my progress, much as education majors spend a semester or more doing their student teaching rotations.  I was expecting to be teaching students who are in summer school for credit recovery (i.e. they failed the course during the regular year).  Instead, I am working with a summer enrichment program for students who are going into 9th grade.  We have mix of students who like school, and don't mind being there, as well as students who's parents are making them go because it is free and keeps them out of trouble.  Overall, even the students who would rather not  be there are still actively participating in the lessons, and so far things are going well. 

One aspect of PT that was totally unexpected to me is that out of our two different classes, one class is entirely ESL (English Second Language, also called ELL, English Language Learners).