Note: This was written before I learned what 2020 could bring us!
We've all been there. You go into school with plans to WOW the students with your lessons, and right when you hit the door....everything begins to fall apart. There's an assembly you didn't know about. Your colleagues are out, so there is no way to keep your current, daily schedule. You lose your prep period to cover someone else. The wifi is down. Someone took your cart of Chromebooks and now you have no technology. You are told to hurry and finish last-minute testing-on those same Chromebooks. Your phone is ringing nonstop with questions and demands you can't answer. Then, the bell rings and you are supposed to be "on" for the kids. Throw those pretty lesson plans right out the window due to lost instructional time or loss of technology you may have needed. This is what I call a MONDAY of the worst kind. After I make it through this day, I need to do it four more times???
You take a deep breath and put a smile on your face for the kids in front of you. Sometimes that is the hardest thing to do. There are times I cannot keep the farce and they can tell I am frustrated. And guess what??? That's ok! Teachers are human and it is important to model how to deal with these unexpected, frustrating issues throughout the day.
A colleague snaps at you in front of your class? Put a nice smile, nod, and say "I will be more than happy to discuss this with you at another time." Then, close the door and go about your business. You get upset and snap at a kid-which you immediately regret. APOLOGIZE. They won't think less of you, in fact, they will respect you MORE. Model how to handle conflict of all kinds.
When my pretty lessons go out the window I ask the kids what they want to do. I tell them the goals, what I had planned and why it will no longer work, and then we problem-solve together how to achieve those same learning goals with the new parameters. Sometimes this may be a shortened class period, a loss of technology that was needed, or some other interruption. It is healthy that they see us working through these problems in a healthy manner, so they can begin to do the same when they hit a roadblock in their life. There are times I may even model taking deep breaths to calm and get myself back on track. And, sometimes, we all take that break to meditate and refocus.
Yesterday was one of these days for me. Unexpected morning assembly that was ill-prepared and caused the entire daily schedule to change, then no morning rotations for my students, shortened class blocks before lunch, and then they came back from specials 20 minutes late and lost a lot of instructional time in the afternoon. So-we revised our day. One of my classes focused on a project we are working on, but we were unable to read. Another class took a benchmark that needed to get out of the way (again, no time to read). And, my last class of the day went through the lesson for the day with barely any time in class to work, which means another day this week we will have to move things around to accommodate what happened yesterday. The phone rang nonstop for the first hour of the day. And a colleague was out and students were unsure of where to go and what to do. It was a perfect MONDAY. And, you know what, at the end of the day everything was okay. We made it through the day and actually managed to accomplish some things. Was it perfect? No. But, neither is life. Did I manage to keep a smile on my face all day? Again, No. AND THAT IS OKAY. I am a firm believer that our students need to see us struggle, and then overcome that same struggle, in order to truly learn how to handle when their emotions get the best of them. And, let's face it, in 6th grade their emotions run their day.
What are your strategies for dealing with days like this? Where nothing goes right and yet you have a class of 30 kids looking to you for guidance and inspiration? How do you keep going and keep a positive tone in your classroom?