A good day

Today is the first day where I have felt GOOD about my WHOLE day. There have been days where I have felt good about some parts, and days where I have felt ok about the whole day, but today, on the whole, everything went well.

It didn't look like the day was starting out well. I was late to teach! Traffic was inexplicably slow on the freeway, right until my exit and then off it went again like nothing was wrong. I called D to ask him to look up and text me the school's number (which, you know, why would I need something like that in my phone? duh...) I called in and explained I was going to be late. I got to class a minute after the bell rang and my heart sank a little when I saw it was the principal who had stepped in for me. But I put on a brilliant smile, swept into the room, trilled "Thank you, Mr. G!" and put my kids to work "did you use the time I was late to study for your test?" which stopped them from giving me a hard time about being late.

After the test we reviewed the passé composé, and I taught them the song about verbs that take ETRE in the PC. We sang it 4 times and then I had them get up and we went out to the blacktop to make up a dance for the song with motions to remind us of what the verbs meant. They actually played along. We sang the song about 15 more times and returned to the classroom whereupon I told them about my favorite day in the past tense, and set them to write at least 10 sentences about their favorite day, real or imaginary. At the end of class one of my students declared, "These two hours flew by!" I felt the same way, and sent them out the door with a "positive reinforcement" piece of candy with a huge sigh of relief and a feeling of confidence.

My other two classes went just as well. In French 1 we had some problems with listening to classmates presenting, and talking when I was talking, but I maintained control of my emotions and practiced my best "Uh-oh, it sounds like (explain what students are doing wrong). We need to (whatever they should be doing)" It's a kind of behaviorism my SIL is trying with her preschooler at home, and I'm upping it to the high school level. Why not use behaviorism to train students to what I want them to do? It's like real life, but without a paycheck.

I'm looking forward to seeing how tomorrow goes. I've got my lessons on the board, copies made, plans figured out for all 4 classes (which is now 5 preps since ELD has 2 levels. Sheesh!). Here we go!