I have come to understand that most, if not all of my behavior issues, occur in the afternoon. There is a huge difference in the kids after their recess/breakfast/lunch time. I can get my morning students to do a lot more than I can in the afternoon. I am even able to teach in the morning.
The group that I had yesterday afternoon was wonderful this morning. This was the same group of students who didn't do anything yesterday afternoon because I could not get them to stop talking. This was the same group of students who made me want to quit yesterday. This was the same group of students that wouldn't listen to a word I said yesterday. This morning I taught them some new words which we used in a sentence and a place value lesson. They were so good. I couldn't believe it. I went in with a new behavior strategy. I gave them points for sitting and listening and working quietly. When they got 10 I let them have 5 minutes of talking/bathroom time. They did great! I was so pleased and I couldn't wait to try it on my afternoon group.
Well, the afternoon is a totally different story. The points didn't work at all. They had 2, but lost them very early on and never earned them back. They would not stop talking. At least I got a little bit of teaching/directions in. It took them 2 periods to copy a couple of sentences from the board. I let those that finished early draw a picture, but that didn't seem to motivate the others to work and not talk. I kept giving stickers to those that were working as well, but that didn't motivate the others. I moved some students and made them sit on the floor, but that didn't work either. I finally erased the board and moved on to math. I didn't dare attempt the place value lesson with unifix cubes like I did in the morning so I was just having them do addition facts so I could see what they know. Again lots of talking and not a lot of working. I could not wait for this afternoon to end. That's how I feel most afternoons. It just wears me out. I am so tired, frustrated and stressed by the end of the day I don't want to do anything. It's a good thing that I leave work at work because I wouldn't be getting anything done even if I did bring it back to the hotel with me.
In amongst all of the chaos of the afternoon there was a huge bright spot. There is this little girl who was a huge behavior problem; rolling on the floor, talking very loudly all the time, jumping up and down, running around pinching the other girls, and pretty much doing whatever she could to get my attention and annoy me. Which I must admit she was doing a really good job of annoying me, but I really tried to keep ignoring her. Every once in a while I would go over and move her back to her corner, but not say anything to her. Eventually I decided to try something else. I asked her to come sit by me and do some math. It took me 3/4 of the afternoon to figure out that she was acting up because she was bored. She is so smart. The simple addition problems that I had for them to do would have taken her like 5 minutes if she would have worked. She showed me that she can do 3 digit addition with carrying, 3 digit subtraction (she's not sure about borrowing and I tried to teach her but she didn't quite get it), multiplication, and I was able to teach her division. I would love to see what she knows in reading. She could read a simple sentence (the cat is on the bed) and write it in Arabic as well.
This is why I would love to be able to assess my students, so I know where they are so I can provide instruction based on what they need. I just can't get the rest of the class to behave while I work with one. I can't ignore the whole class, like I did this afternoon when I was working with and assessing one student.
No money yet. I should get paid tomorrow. Should being the key word here. It's the end of the month, but that may not mean anything in this country.
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