Day 2 of fifth grade

I have just had a wonderful two days of teaching half time, and spending time with M and A too! What a treat. Unlike my last year, I was not in tears within minutes of the start of the year. This is quite the improvement. . .

Here are the ways the school is different from ones I have been in over the past years.

• The students brought supplies to school - binders, paper, pencils, folders galore (in the past I was lucky if a few kids brought a few pencils)
• All but one student was on time for both days (in Oakland a third of my class was regularly tardy, and the school sometimes would keep them for 10 - 15 minutes to lecture to them, having them arrive 20 or 30 minutes into the class totally clueless)
• Very few loudspeaker announcements (At one school the principal got on the schoolwide loud speaker while school was in session and berated teachers for sending students to the office and stated out loud that she would not, under any circumstance suspend a student no matter what they did . . . that really improved the classroom structure . . . that same principal later in the year said that a child would be suspended immediately if he or she said any swear words. . . which had my students loudly saying things like I am just going to tucker that . . . "but, Ms. Luria, I wasn't swearing, I said" . . . you get the idea)
• 20 students in the classroom (yes, I know you have all heard about my first year where I started the year with 45 students, 40 desks in a bilingual 7th grade/8th grade split class where 15 students were placed in the class because they had Spanish sur names, but didn't actually speak Spanish, and at the same time I was supposed to be teaching ancient civilization to 20 students in Spanish (no textbook) and US history to the rest of the students (no textbook) in both English and Spanish at the same time! Joy)
  
• The kids seem amazingly well behaved (I'm not sure it this is mostly the kids, my skills or what, but I'm not going to ask too many questions. My behavior management strategy has four parts. Thank you Fred Jones:
1. Arrange the room so I can work the crowd and always be circulating around the students.
2. Teach with Say See Do teaching, or make every step auditory, visual and kinesthetic.
3. Manage students with body language. (Three mottos: "Don't do with your mouth what you can do with your body", "If you can, keep in private, not public", and "Discipline always comes before instruction")
4. Responsibility training - spend the last three to five minutes of each lesson playing learning games that review the material . . . but have the students earn that time through positive behavior.
   

So far, everyone is soooo friendly at the school. I am enjoying all of the students and the parents seem nice as well.

I am loving the part time schedule. It is the most wonderful thing in the world to be able to see Alayna and Mateo every afternoon and be finished with teaching. I'm just really enjoying myself.