5th Grade Can Be Tough, But I'm Tougher!

Last year while teaching 4th grade I could get really friendly with students that weren't mine.  I was able to laugh and joke with other students right away, I didn't need to set strict boundaries right away.  The relationship with your current students is different from the relationship you can have with non-students or former students.  For example, my other fourth grade colleague had a very small class.  About 17 kids I think.  When I received a special grant to take my students to Knott's Berry Farm, I invited them along as well.  I was able to have a great time with the kids and joke around, ultimately I knew they had to answer to their authority figure.

Fast forward to this year.  Those 17 fourth graders are now in my fifth grade class.  I think many of them were surprised to see Ms. Gibson with her serious face on.  It is so important to set high standards for achievement and behavior from day 1.  When I noticed one of the girls trying to run my classroom and make little jokes at my expense, I had to call her outside for a minute while the rest of the class was working.  Our conversation, or monologue, went something like this:
Ms. Gibson: "I know last year we were all cool and everything BUT your weren't my student.  This year I'm your teacher and this is my castle.  In this castle I am the Princess, do you understand?"
Girl: shakes head yes
This girl appeared a bit salty for a few minutes but like most kids, she quickly stopped showing the physical features of her emotions and proceeded to get back to business as usual.  In fact, this was the girl who spear headed my "Special Delivery" package from the previous week.  This further confirms what I've always believed, kids appreciate stability and rules.  No matter what other responsibilities they have outside of class they can still be a kid in my room.

This was the first year that I did not give homework for the first four days of school mostly because I was not prepared.  The last minute grade level change and vacation altered my schedule drastically. Now that we've all adjusted to returning to school I've gone back to my normal routine of daily homework.  I was pretty relaxed during the first official week of assigned homework so that the kids could get the hang of what how I expect homework to be completed and what types of assignments are given.  Our homework chart started 7 days ago.  Each empty spot represents no homework or some assignments are missing.  Most of my chart has empty spots.  As with every year there is always a group of students that will do their homework with fidelity and religiously regardless of my grading techniques.  The vast majority of my students were picking and choosing which assignments to complete.  As for the rest of the class I got nothing day after day.  I obviously don't have a super intrinsically motivated group (yet) so I knew I had to do something to increase my return of homework.

In previous years I have kept my students in during their recess time to complete their work.  This serves the purpose of getting the students to work but it takes away from my break time.  I like to take care of personal business, have a snack, and use the restroom during my breaks but the constant monitoring of kids does not allow for this.  I've even tried the rotating room where a group of teachers sacrifices one day a week to monitor all the children that have work to do.  This approach gives the teacher more freedom and I prefer it.  We try to present a united front and let the students know work is not an option.

This is the first year in my teaching history that the district is closely monitoring physical education in the elementary grades.  We are being held accountable for the 200 minutes of PE for every 10 days.  This is kind of funny since I have dusty old PE teacher books in my closet from 1981 that cite the education code requirement of 200 minutes of PE every 10 days.  But anyways, the point is that I feel conflicted when kids don't do their homework.  There must but consequences to teach responsibility.  This year I have really struggled with keeping kids in at their recess time.  Part of this struggle has been the sheer number of kids that I am monitoring (38 to be exact).  I really want my students to socialize and exercise, we all need that break away from the classroom.  

On the first school day of September the upper grade teachers decided to start the rotating lunch detention schedule.  On day 1 there were a lot of my students in detention.  On day 2 there were only half as many.  I'm glad they are quick studies but there are always a couple who still insist on doing nothing.  Two weeks in and I still had a couple of students that refused to do work.  I immediately began calling parents, writing notes home, and scheduling conferences.  There was one student that never returned notices sent home and was always after school really late.  I told him I would stay with him until his parents came to pick him up if he didn't do his work.  The very next day he learned that Ms. Gibson does not make threats, she makes promises.

All you have is your word, even in the classroom.