"Dear Tch" – A Community of Support

Have you ever had one of those teaching days where you felt like it was "the worst day of your life?" Last week we received a message from a dedicated second-year teacher who had one of those days, and reached out for a bit of support.

He is a secondary art teacher in a rural school of approximately 172 kids. Many of the students are learning English as a second language and are recent immigrants from Russia and the Ukraine. He has challenges communicating with his students' parents who work long hours and, in some cases, don't even have a phone.

I am reaching out to him with some Teaching Channel resources, but I also want to reach out to our blogging community. I think our collective advice would be the most helpful to him. Here's part of what he wrote to us:

Dear Tch,

Last Thursday, I had my USB device stolen. Thankfully I got this back, but during this whole semester, things have been really rough. Students have been destroying my classroom materials, acting belligerently, and not putting forth much effort.

We have a new principal who is making quite a few adjustments. As good as this is, I think many students aren't quite used to this much behavioral structure. Currently, we are at a point where we are trying to devise a school-wide discipline strategy that will work. Our principal has asked us to check with other schools to see what works for them. It doesn't seem like our Saturday school detentions, In School Suspension, or Out of School Suspensions are having an impact on student behavior. In short, it's a mess.
So much comes down to classroom management. With this in mind, I have decided to concentrate as much on this as I do on my lesson plans and instructional methods. I have started with the attention getting signals I saw on Teaching Channel. It works very well!

I also need help with:

• getting kids to be responsible for their deadlines and classroom duties
• getting students to act with respect
• avoiding power struggles
• achieving greater student engagement

I am only in my second year of teaching, so of course I understand that I am still learning what works best. Therefore, I wanted to reach out and get some help wherever I could; it seems like even my veteran colleagues are at a loss about what to do. So, there you have it! Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for helping a stranger!

Yours,

"Trying to Get Better at Teaching for the Sake of My Students"

_____

Fellow Tchers—let's put our heads together and provide some practical ideas he can try in his class right away. In my next post, I'll share some additional Tch videos and other resources I hope will help him. What ideas do you have to improve the classroom experience for this teacher and his students?

Marie White, Director of Educational Programming