"It is best to be both feared and loved, however, if one cannot be both it is better to be feared than loved." -Machiavelli
This is something that I've been struggling with lately. On the good side, I no longer have three classes that I like and three that I don't like. I'm liking more and more of my students and so far, by today, Wednesday September 19th, I have had three good days this week. Thank goodness. However, there are still some of those students who are driving me crazy. And this is where my struggle comes into play. Do I want to be feared or loved? Do I want my kids to like me and for me to be cool Miss Yadlin. Or do I want the kids to fear me. Not running away from me screaming but to know that I won't back down and that I won't take any crap from them. There are a few kids who I think need that slap on the wrist now because the behavior will continue to escalate if I don't nip it in the bud now. I talked with my vice principal about this and he gave me some recommendations but today in fifth period I just lost my patience and assigned two students detention. The weird thing was that one of the students became started to participate and give decently smart answers, as well as voluteered to do some helpful things in class. It was an amazing transformation in about three seconds. I don't knwo if this was a way to say "See, look I can be good, I shouldn't get detention" but there is NO way that I am backing down with this. I need him to still come in so that I'm not seen as someone that he can push around. For most of the other classes, I've foujnd that the idea of detention works, either for one student/group or for the entire class. By letting them know that I have to stay after class anyway and that I have no problem with them staying with me, then it usually helps settle things down.
Now for my confusion. I assigned a quiz to my 8th graders earlier this week on the Thirteen Colonies. This doesn't seem like a big deal but here is my confusion- the people that I thought would do well pretty much bombed it and those that I thought would bomb it did considerably better. What the heck am I supposed to do with this? It's very confusing. Although I guess it's better than if those who I had assumed would do poorly really did. That would just depress me. And in the scheme of things I'd rather be confused by a surprising turn of events than be depressed for a week.
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I feel your pain. I have really struggled with showing my care for the students and also showing I mean business. Some days I feel like a witch, but when I relax too much I go home with a headache. I guess the up side is that it seems this is a pretty normal thing when talking to other teachers. My team told me they are always dealing with it (when I broke down in tears to them), but that you are constantly learning new tricks that make your life easier.
As for the quiz, my cooperating teacher last year said that they never has to know that it didn't go in the grade book. It will help them see that they don't understand and push them a little and maybe give you an opportunity to really capture thier attention in reteaching???
I hate to sound like a jerk, but it is good to hear that I am not the only one feeling out of my element. I guess a better way to say it is that it is nice to relate with someone, as I work with almost ALL veteran teachers.
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