Friday, June 5, 2009

Yay for the weekend!

Phew! I'm wiped out. I just came back from my difficult school and I'm like physically exhausted. I ended the day with a very behavioral challenged class. They are just not capable of being quiet or listening or being polite. It's really impressive, in a bad way. They are my class of CE2 and every time I have class with them, I feel like taking a nap afterwards. So punishments don't work, neither does threatening them with bad grades. They don't listen. So I tried to do something different. It worked pretty well the first two times and then today, the effect wore off. I told them that if they were good, I would give them a small gift at the end of class. I wanted to try positive reinforcement and it has worked better than any of my other methods. But today, they were not good so it just wasn't possible and I left without giving them anything. I feel bad but in a way, maybe that will make them think a little and the next class will be better. I mostly feel bad for the 3 kids that are actually good and listen and are good students. They are the ones getting hurt in this situation. I might give them something special at the end. But if the other kids find out, they might not be very nice to them. They are not at all nice within their group. The students in this school call each other horrible names and insult each other to the worst degree. It's very upsetting but in the end, what can I do about it? I just try to be the good, cheerful assistant. I think they all like me which makes me happy, and I know that some of them try harder in class because they like me. But it's not the case for everyone. I just hope that I made an impression on these kids and that they'll have some kind of future in front of them.


Oh and btw, I haven't followed my challenged as I had planned. I cut down on the internet to a degree, but I definitely wouldn't say I only spent between 30 -45 minutes online per day. I would say probably double or even trible that. Ok so I'm an addict, and I admit it. It's like having your coffee everyday, you need it to get through the day!

2 comments:

au soleil levant said...

I know what you mean! My monster class is my first class Monday morning and my last class Friday morning. I've been doing positive reinforcement from the start but that just doesn't work... I may be switching to a zero tolerance policy until school is over. It's funny how there are some classes that just never learned to behave. And you're right, the kids who are well behaved and want to learn are the ones who suffer. I really wish I could just take them and teach them and let the other ones do worksheets all class, but of course, can't...

Katie said...

Yea these kids are horrible. I guess no matter how you try to make them behave better, they won't change. Sigghhh..thank god it's almost over!!