kids these days

I was in my classroom with rounds of students today. With the returning students/hormonal attitudes, I had to revert to my regular teacher self, with a few modifications of course. It has been really interesting to learn about how these schools think disruptions and difficult students should be dealt with (quietly etc to preserve dignity). It's really made me think about what I do and have done, what has and hasn't worked and why. I am doing my best to adhere to their high standards. I like them, have already seen it in action and seen that it's useful and more effective.

That said, there is plenty that is the same. Namely, me. :)

All this charter school stuff has had me questioning myself, my methods, my so-called successes, and of course all my massive teaching failures. It had me thinking that I didn't have effective management, that I wouldn't know how to deal with kids 'correctly' within this framework, that I wouldn't be kind enough, all sorts of things.

In the last week or so, I've been trying to reassure myself that actually, my management is pretty good. I had lots of compliments from admin and colleagues, and best of all, lots of kids mentioned it in their end of year surveys, "Ms don't play!" "You better work in Ms's class" and such. (Which reminds me, I never wrote a summary of this year's. they're great, especially the disparities in response to the question asking their opinion of the music that I played. In fact, I'm not positive where those papers are right now....I suppose I'll come across them this weekend when finishing packing.) Anyway, today I felt like I was right at 'home' again, in a way, being a teacher in front of kids, even though the faces, the names, the ages, the classroom, the school, the borough were different, it was also pretty much the same.

Today is...Thursday? Which means one, two, three, four days left in my apartment. And plenty left to pack. And planning to finish--I haven't worked on it at all this week, my brain is just too fried.