I just finished up my first week at school. It was ok; not bad, not good. It always amazes me what kids choose to argue and complain about. In an effort to try to understand my students’ learning styles I gave them a 44-question survey to help me achieve that. Bad idea. It’s sad too because now I’m left with questioning if they took it seriously and if I can rely on it. So, that was one lesson learned. I won’t be doing that next year.

Overall, I spent far too many days going over guidelines and procedures. Now, before you say anything I have to say in my defense that the exercises I had laid out should have taken no more than two to two-and-a-half days to complete. But the incessant talking dragged it out for the rest of the week.

The sad thing was the fact that I was trying to give them a voice in the process. I had a Do Now assignment where I asked them how they would have handled the discussion and implementation of classroom guidelines (i.e., rules). Many of them were totally clueless putting down things like, “I would just do it” or “I would have just done it in one day by explaining to the students that this is how it is.” I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything more reflective, but I got feedback indicating some would have done it as I had done it. So, in some small way, that worked out well to hear that.

One thing of note is how contrary the kids are to the reduction of noise and wandering in the hall. Like I said at the beginning of this post, you just never know what they are going to choose to complain about.

The new discipline guidelines for the school seem to be working on some level; however, I think it’s going to take much longer than what people thought to get a semi-fix in place. I’m guessing that if we keep it tight then three months may be the time frame to start being more flexible because the kids will be broken in.