Sandy, I agree

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Home : 2003 : September : 8

Sandy, I agree
By Cathy-Dee

I've worked for 7 administrators in the past 10 years in 4 schools.

And most of my administrators were men (only one was a woman). I would have to say that 2 of the male principals were not as supportive or organized as
the female one was.
There are good and bad administrators just as there are good and bad teachers. And this does not only apply to teaching.
In the private sector some of my "worse" bosses were males.
And while I do sympathize with your class size I think we need to continue to put the blame where it belongs and that's with our governments (which interestingly enough are much more

male dominated than female).

And I would never want to trade jobs with my administrator. While our jobs as teachers are difficult and often demanding, their jobs are not as cushy as some would believe. Try balancing the needs of the students, the needs of the teachers, the wants of the parents, the demands of the government and remain positive as well as supportive.

As far as being in a class of 34 - here are a few suggestions that may or may not help, but hopefully they help

- try doing your desks in clusters
- another teacher on this board also used a bookcase I believe to divde the room in half basically so that the students who tended to react off one another were not visually able to see one-another for most of the class. It's working for her.
- Take a few evenings and weekends to prepare "busy activity work". I like to make up workbooks with reading comprehension work, etc., that students work in when all other work is complete. You could also have mini-projects posted they could work on that they would enjoy doing. Making sure they always have things to keep them busy will help with the management aspect hopefully.
- Get lots of sleep - when we are tired we just do not manage our rooms as well and the students take advantage.
- Do reading buddies with lower grades 2 times a week - if they are smaller classes - send only a few students out to read and then you can work with the smaller number you have left. Then on the second day send out the other ones and do the same lesson.

- create an easy point system - one I learned about this year is called Magic 7. When you say Magic 7 they have 7 seconds to settle down, get books out, be prepared, line up, or whatever it is you want them to do. If they can do it in the 7 seconds they get a point, if they do not do it you get the point. Then at the end of the week for the last period whoever has the most points gets to choose the activity for that classtime. If it's you then you choose it, if it's the class then they choose. I give my students options to choose from and then they vote on what they want.