I look like a teacher!

So today I learned something that I can hopefully transfer to my classes: if you end the day (or the class period) on a good note, it can make everything that went wrong that day seem so trivial. I got to school this morning and the first thing I heard was that because our students didn't do well on their test, we needed to do more drill practice. Now for me, this is a disaster. I hate drills. They hate drills. And when we do drills, no one actually does the work until we go over the answers. But I am now supposed to include more of them so I will; it won't be all drills, but we will do them. This was during my first period planning while I was trying to get ready to start a new unit.

Then came second period. I am still waiting for my bad day with them because other than a few small attention-seeking behaviors, they are my good class. However, I did have to take an iPod today during our vocab introduction lesson. But everything went smoothly and we finished the lesson.

Then we had lunch. Today was a Smart Lunch day and I had one student come in who is currently failing the course, but decided that yesterday's test was going to be the last thing he fails in this class and that he will come to every Smart Lunch we hold until the end of the semester. (He did a great job participating in class today and even wrote three whole sentences using new vocabulary at the end of class!)

After lunch comes third period. They are my fun class. They don't want to do classwork, but they love to participate. They dislike writing, but LOVE to talk. About shoes, basketball games, colleges, anything and everything - in English. Now occasionally they will speak in Spanish and if I ask them to they really do try. But I am constantly reminding the entire class to get back on track with me. But overall, they were pretty well-behaved today.

And then we had fourth period. This is my trouble class. They are tired. I am tired. All of us have had a long day. They want to sleep and I want to teach and these to ideas don't mesh well. So today I told them, as nicely as I could, "Guys, if you want to sleep and leave to go to the restroom and talk to your friends while I am teaching, that's fine with me as long as you don't disrupt class. But just know that if you don't pay attention while I am teaching on a regular basis, I will not reteach it to you during Smart Lunch. However, if you pay attention and participate in class everyday, I will help you as much as I possibly can." And about 15 minutes after that, the assistant principal whose office is next door popped in to observe for a few minutes. It made me nervous because I thought he might have heard me say they could sleep in class. :/ But that's not why he came.

After school we had the curriculum fair. I was kind of nervous going into it because I was afraid I wouldn't know what to say if a parent came up and asked me questions about Spanish. But I listened to my CT handle one parent conversation and when we got crowded I just started repeating what I had heard her say. I shook hands, I passed out papers, and I answered questions - it was actually a little fun. After it was over, the same assistant principal came up to me and said "I just wanted to let you know..." (now this is when my heart sank because I thought I was in trouble) "... if I did not know you and know that you were here in the capacity you are, I never would have guessed." He told me that I acted like a staff member and I fit in really well and he thought I needed to know that. I am almost positive I turned bright red and my smile probably went from ear to ear. I was so thrilled. And now all of the things I thought went wrong and stressed me out seem like nothing. I got a compliment from an assistant principal, and it's only my third week teaching classes. :D

Today was a good day and I will go to bed happy and arrive at school tomorrow excited, refreshed, and ready to go.