Ok, so I am doing my student teaching in what can only be called innercity (though I didn't realize this until after starting) in a 87% free/reduced lunch school in a kindergarten class. I have 20 students, 13 boys, 7 girls (yeah...). JUst about every one of them has a rough home life and many of them have anger issues. It really frustrates me because this has been an area of strength for me in any other kid situation- camp, preschool, baby-sitting, a first grade practicum) but these kids will NOT listen to me. Some of them are kind of starting to, sort of.
I've been in the class full-time for 6 weeks now and have had full-responsibility for 2 of those 6. I met them basically at the beginning of those 6 weeks so it's gone beyond just the simple testing of the new teacher. My cooperating teacher has authority with these kids and I was doing things similar to her ways so as not to distrub their routine and because it worked well with her. Well apparently it doesn't work with them. I've tried doing random jelly beans to the kids making good choices, highlighting their name on a list for a warning, one check is missing 5 minutes of recess, 2 checks is all of recess. This works ok-ish for morning recess but there is only so much room at the back table for all of the kids at lunch so if I put too many there they just talk because there is not a separate room or teacher to police that area. Also, I hate the idea of missing recess because I feel like that's just what they need when they get too crazy but I don't know of any other ideas and that's what my teacher said that worked well for them and her.
I can't send a letter home because most of these kids wouldn't get help at home/reinforcement of my authority with any of this even if I did send a note home.
Currently I carry/post a list of the kids names and highlight them when they are not behaving. That's a warning. One check and they miss 5 minutes of recess, 2 they miss all of recess. Sometimes that means staying inside with my master teacher and other times it means sitting against the wall outside. This is for morning recess. Then the process starts over for the second half of the morning and if they get 1 check it is sitting at the back table (supposedly not talking, but that just doesn't get monitored because of staffing) and then for 5 minutes of recess which is easier to monitor. 2 checks means back table for all of recess. Problem is that they end up outside anyway half of the time. So yeah.
I've also done jellybeans when I catch kids being good (as well as saying that "im getting my jelly beans and looking for the first kids to be sitting down quietly" yeah, I know, bribery though more subtle and never "if you do this I'll give you ___... ugh!) They also have a table point system set up wher they earn points as a table and then get a gummy bear at the end of the day if their table wins. The whole school does a thing where if the kids earn a compliment in the hallways from another adult besides their teacher then they get a point. When the class gets 10 points they get to have an ice cream party or whatever they decide on. It took us about 5 weeks to earn 10 compliments. Most of them were earned when the troublemakers were in the classroom for their recess and I had like 8 kids.
So, yeah, I guess atthis point I'm so frustrated and upset that I can't get it because I thought I had it down and also I've got everything else down like lesson planning and teaching and I know there are a lot of teachers on the board so I thought I'd ask. Help?!?!
