A Tough Job at Times

I wish that teaching could just be about helping children succeed, learning, and making children realize that they are special. However, I am quickly learning there are some not so glamorous sides to teaching. I am learning that some home lives that children are coming from are horrific. It breaks my heart, but makes me strive to make the eight hours that they spend at school amazing. I am also learning that discipline is a HUGE part of what we do as teachers, and for me that is not a very glamorous part. Nonetheless, I am learning and having to learn quickly due to some of the students in my class. I wrote the other day about my student who had a breakthrough excellent day, well Wednesday was not such an excellent day for him. My teacher was away on Wednesday and so at lunch time I was working on lesson plans in the classroom for the day and getting some stuff done. All of the sudden this little girl from my class comes running inside the classroom crying hysterically. I calmed her down and told her to tell me what had happened. She told me that *Dan had kicked her when they were playing on the monkey bars. *Dan has had quite a bit of trouble with the monkey bars, and so has *Eileen. I went outside and pulled *Dan and *Eileen aside. I had *Eileen tell me her side of the story and during this time *Dan could not talk, and then vice versa. They had two completely different stories, and since this had happened in the past I told them until they could prove to me that they could handle playing nice that they were not to go on the monkey bars. *Eileen understood this and went away and played something else, but *Dan went to the other set of monkey bars and asked if he could play on those. I told him that no monkey bars meant none of the monkey bars, and he went off and did something else. I headed back into the classroom to get some work done, but our classroom overlooks the playground and all of the sudden I looked outside and sure enough *Dan was playing on the monkey bars. I thought to myself "you've got to be kidding me." I ran outside and in my best stern teacher voice I told him to come here right now. *Dan came right away and I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was playing on the monkey bars. I asked him what I told him not to do and he told me not to play on the monkey bars. I then told him how becuase he could not listen to my instructions (that have been repeated numerous times) he would spend the rest of his recess inside with me. I had him sit down and finish some work (he is very behind on his work because he does not focus in class and disrupts other children). Then, I sat down and had a talk with him. I told *Dan how I was not mad at him but I was disappointed that he did not listen to my instructions. We talked about respect and what that means, and why we are at school. I have faith in him that by the time I leave he will be a hard working student who knows how to behave with other children, and I will NOT give up on him. However, I have decided that I really dislike punishment and having to be stern with children like that, but I know it must be done for their own good and the sake of other children.