September 12

Here is my first journal entry of the year.

“Things that worked: It's hard to think of things that worked because everything was all over the place... let's see, the morning meeting, spelling test, writer's workshop, math, Read Aloud, none of it worked... I really can't think of a thing... we cleaned up okay (because the security guard made them clean up). Oh, I know, they liked my story of when Abby (my daughter) almost set the apartment on fire. Oh, and the behavior management system was all over the place...”

Grad school had told me engaged kids couldn’t act up. I told a fantastic story of how my daughter put a towel in the broiler part of the oven without my wife and I knowing, and when I turned on the oven for pizza, the whole oven lit up. It was a story that made almost every student silent, and I tragically figured that if only I could make every lesson as fantastic as a real life apartment fire, then they would behave. I followed my journal with a bit on what didn’t work.

“Things that did not work: morning meeting- students were unable to sit quietly at the circle; writer's workshop- students never started writing; incentives- unclear as to how they earn tickets; math- they were only half attentive because they thought they could go to a dance assembly: holding things above their heads, and then not giving it to them only makes them angry...”

It had only been a few weeks of school, and it was apparent that I had the worst class. It turned out half my students had a 1st grade teacher that quit in October, and the other half had a teacher that was on her last year of teaching before retirement. I guess she had a bunch of vacation days saved over the years, and she used them for most of the second half of the school year. The PE teacher told me it was common for him to sit in on the first graders because it was rare for subs to show up. Last year's first graders were known to spend most of the day running the halls, and they even considered themselves a gang, the "baby 12."

This Friday there was a dance assembly scheduled for the afternoon, and the assistant principal, Ms. Coan, told me I should only bring my class if I thought they deserved it. I told the kids if they behaved the whole day they could go to the assembly. They didn’t seem to care, well not until it was 30 minutes before the assembly. It seemed like every 3 minutes I reminded them, “You have to work quietly if you want to go… not everyone will be going you know.” I figured they had done alright, relative to the standard chaos, so I lined them up; I needed the break anyway. Ms. Coan stopped by my room right as I was lining them up and said, “Mr. Slaughter, I think it is best if you don’t bring your class.” So after I held the carrot above the kids' heads all day, Ms. Coan snatched it away. That afternoon I learned a few lessons about behavioral psychology. In my journal, I continued searching for answers:

“What can be changed: when they come back from lunch they need a quiet time activity on their desk so we can get bathroom breaks out of the way; they need labels on their lockers; labels on their tables; clean tables; permanent schedules; more hopes and dreams; a better system for students in time out (they shouldn’t throw things at each other while in time out); more engaging activities; I need spots where I put things; the desk needs to be HANDS OFF. Parents need to be called, GET NUMBERS FOR ALL THE PARENTS, fill out SST/counseling forms for Sean, Wayne, Randy, Lauren, Marlin, and Noah.”

I had never failed anything in my life. In my first year of college when most of the students in my Chemistry class received Cs, or worse, on the first exam I overheard them say they were just not cut out for it. Before the exam, I was studying four hours a night, and a C on the exam only meant one thing: I needed to study more. I made it a goal to stay in the library longer than anybody in my class, and sometimes it meant I had the pleasure of being the first in the cafeteria the next morning for fresh, scrambled eggs and steaming hot apple crisps. I got an A- on the next exam. I didn't care if I wasn't the smartest; I knew I could outwork anybody.

At Daley, I came in to school at 7am every morning, an hour early, and if the custodian had opened the school any earlier, I would have made it earlier. There was no way a class of seven year olds were going to beat me; I just had to outwork them.