As you can see, Declan enjoyed Valentines day. He had his first Valentine party at his pre-school. He came home with this HUGE bag of candy. I told him after dinner he could have ONE piece. I came in the room to find this on the table. He had sampled a large variety of treats(notice the 3 gummies with 1 bite missing on each). He has been sooo good about not sneaking candy, I was surprised that he did this. If my parents say he can have a treat, he will still find me to ask if it's O.K. Anyhow, I guess he really enjoyed Valentines :)

Well, my second day of teaching is behind me. I've had a good few days. My "Mentor Teacher" (MT) taught the first half of the day and I taught the 2nd half. The kids were pretty good. I did end up giving two kids lunch detention for tomorrow. There are always a couple of kids who want to test you.

I also called the parents of the two boys, and that was interesting. One boy, Johnny, was talking and I moved him to another seat. (my discipline policy is the first time you disrupt my class I will move you to a new location. The second time, I will move you out of my class and assign detention. I am VERY clear with my students on this procedure) Shortly thereafter, I'm discussing Solar Winds with the class and standing shoulder to shoulder with this kid and I look over and he appears to be signing or making some kind of hand gestures, attempting to be witty and cute. I send him out of the class. At the end of class I meet with him and ask "Do you think it was appropriate to be using sign language while I'm talking to the class?" He says "Oh, that wasn't sign language, I was doing The Macarana" I reply, "Okay, well you'll have lunch detention tomorrow and you can think about whether or not that was a good choice". He actually took it well and it was a pretty stress free event.

THEN I call his Mother. We are suppose to contact a parent any time a student is disciplined in anyway. I tell her about the incident. She replied "Oh, he was doing the Macarana, I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it. I bet he looked cute." WHAT !! I'm thinking " I can't believe that she just said "I bet he looked cute"." I replied "Well, perhaps (Pause) but it IS distracting for me as a teacher and I'm sure for students who are supposed to be listening. If I allow that sort of behavior in the class, it can waste half the class time." She says "He was doing it for half the class time?" I say "No, but if I ignore it, he will do or say disruptive ("CUTE") things two or three times a day and another student will follow his lead and suddenly your class is full of disruptions"

Trust me I don't enjoy taking such an intense/unflexible position in regards to noise, talking, and behavior in the classroom, but it can escalate sooo quickly to a point where you lose 3-5 minutes of class time. That only needs to happen 3 times in a period and you've lost 1/3 of your time.

Anyway, other than that I had a really good day. I am however, tired. My MT seemed to think I did a good job on my lessons. At first she didn't want me to teach one of the classes because they were such a discipline problem. However, I convinced her that I would be fine and that I could handle it. During a break in the lesson she came up and whispered that I was doing a great job staying "on top of the kids" (of course that made me feel good). I think classroom management can be a big problem with most new or student teachers. I feel that I have a good advantage as I've had a lot of experience in that area. I've been managing teenagers for the past 15 years.

Okay enough already. Happy Valentines Day!