Except for 5

This was one of the worse teaching days of my life.

I was nice.  I knew that being moved to another grade was not my idea, so why punish whoever was going to take over my class?  So I did this weeks lesson plans and sent in most of the activities to do them.  This is me.  This is what I do.

The class I went into wasn't so nice.  The teacher had just been fired.  For what?  Behavior management.  Kids were off the chain crazy and she was not getting any support.  She did a lot of yelling at them.  She was there when I got there before the students got there.  I had met her briefly during orientation.  She wasn't happy.  She was packing up her things to leave.  No lesson plans.  No idea what I am going to be doing with this class.  Actually two classes.  I teach Math, English, and Science to one class, then turn around and do it all over again. An Arab teacher took the students for the first two periods so that I could talk to the Head of Faculties (there are two of them) about what I was supposed to do with these students TODAY.  One gave me something to do for English, then they put me in the classroom.  This was the end of the second period and the Arab teacher was leaving.  The students then proceeded to totally lose their mind! No behavior management was in place, and I couldn't get them to calm down.  Lunch time!  They ran out of the room, all except 5.  I walked those 5 down to where they were to go.  When I went to pick them up, they were gone!  The next class was in the classroom waiting.  They are supposed to be a special needs class.  Not a problem. I can do that.  Not with them!  All, except for about 5, lost their minds!  They would not sit down, they would not be quiet, they would not do anything that I asked them to do!  They were walking on the tables and desks, throwing popcorn all over the place (left over from lunch), breaking pencils, trying to plug in the computer on my desk (and if I tried to stop them they would run out of the room). They took the push pins out of the bulletin board and tried to poke each other with them.  Took some of the math manipulatives and threw them on the floor. When the other Arab teacher came to teach them Arabic, I told her that they couldn't leave until they cleaned the room.  She made them do it, and I had about 30 minutes of peace and quiet.  Then they came back.  Same thing all over again.  I was trying to teach, they were trying not to learn.  The principal comes in.  I tell her what was going on, she yells at them and leaves.  It starts back up.  She comes back and yells some more, hits them over the head, puts them all (except for 5) on a wall and tells them to stay, then leaves.  Those on the wall either sit down and/or start talking.  I did have about 15 minutes where I actually tried to get some teaching done.  Another teacher came in and tried to help, it didn't help. She helped me take them to the buses, after about half just ran out of the door.

So now I need a really good behavior plan that they understand.  Nothing means anything to them.  There is no consequence at school that scares them into wanting to behave. My job for tonight, start on formulating a good behavior plan and something to do tomorrow to teach so I can see what they already know.  I was told today that no teacher lasts in that school longer than a year.  To tell you the truth, they really need to pay more money to be in there.  Hazard pay.  And that's sad.  These are children!