today was interesting

I only had two classes today besides from homeroom. I decided cursing was really getting out of hand with my kids so when someone cursed in homeroom, i handed them a discipline sheet. he was a good sport and filled it out with no problem. then, during my next class, i warned them that profanity was unacceptable and would result in a discipline sheet. i got one "fuck you" after 15 minutes. 5 minutes later, another kid said the f-word. Both kids took the discipline sheet. one didn't want to do it but i convinced him, and the other was ok. The whole class was good for a while, but 10 minutes later, another one said shit when he gave a wrong answer. This kid absolutely refused to do it. The only thing that convinced him was that I told him he wouldn't be able to play football if he refused. I gave him an extra period to think about it, and at the end of the day he had a half complete sheet for me.

Hopefully this should help the cursing issue.

Then my last class was a whole other story. I gave a test and two students were being mildly disruptive. One girl kept turning back and laughing at and talking to a boy who kept humming and making random comments. I decided to move the girl's seat, since the boy wasn't really talking to anyone but himself, but the girl was completely turning around and trying to converse during the test (and she wouldn't care about a zero either.)

Well she refused to move. She mostly just ignored me, but occasionally asked why she had to listen to me. The third time I asked her to move, I told her I would give her a minute to gather her things and go to another desk, or I would have to give her a discipline sheet. She wouldn't move, and then she refused to fill out the sheet. At this point, the entire class had stopped testing and was watching me and this student. Luckily, a dean happened to be walking down the corrider so I asked him to come and take the student.

Not moving her seat isn't such a huge offense in my book, but this was the u2b class (she is my newest addition to the roster.) They used to be a huge discipline problem for me and if they saw me let this girl do whatever she wanted, I feel that all hell would break loose the next time.

So it turns out that the dean conferenced her with the principal and they spoke to her parent too. And apparently she pissed off the always calm principal so much that she walked out of the room on her. That's not a good thing, but it makes me feel like maybe I wasn't overreacting with this girl.

But thankfully my administration is super supportive and are adept at handling these problems while I learn the ropes.

In other news, my entire schedule is now messed up since Friday's classes were cancelled for a school wide activity. I was planning on giving a test on Monday but that will have to be pushed off until Thursday and Friday because of Rosh Hashana. I'm sure the kids will rejoice.