Day 24 - My First Breakthrough

My cooperating teacher does a lot of team teaching with the teacher next to our classroom. We switch so my teacher does the SOSE and the teacher next to us teaches science. We also switch during English for reading and writing. The class I switch with has some more behavior problems than I am used to in my class and it has proven to be a struggle when I'm in front of the class by myself. I've left school very frustrated on quite a few occasions and really started to second guess a lot of the things I had been doing with the other class. I even made adjustments to my lesson plan because the class we switch with isn't as strong with discussions as the class I work with every day. Unfortunately, my adjustments weren't successful the first time around. The students were clearly testing my limits the last few times I had them in class. It got to the point where I needed to say something so after they all came into class I gave them the "I know you can do better" speech. I set up a system where they get two warnings and on the third time they have to change their behavior card in their teacher's room. I assumed that I would need to give it a few days and possibly have to show the students that there would be consequences, but just warning them seemed to be enough and I really get through to them. It was a great end to what had been a somewhat frustrating week.