Max Crimp

EDUC 202
Prof. Terpstra

Teacher Aiding Journal 4
This week has been a different experience for me. My regular teacher has
been out this entire week because of a surgery, so I have had a substitute the past
couple of days. After the first day, I could already see how the class is different when
there is a sub. The whole dynamic of the class shifts when their regular teacher is
not present. I can see how differently the students act, and how well they react to
the substitutes discipline (and mine for that matter). This is allowing me to take on
a little more authoritative role however. Since I have been in the class for a few
weeks now, the students take my authority as a teacher more seriously. Sometimes,
they will not listen to the substitute, but they will listen to me. For instance, I had to
take away a students recess time for the firs time today. To be honest, I wasnt sure
how I felt about it. The student was making noises during reading, and after I
threatened to take away recess time, he continued to make the noises and distract
others. I was forced to take away his recess. However, I knew that he was making
noises to get attention and because he was antsy. I had the same problem sitting still
in class and keeping quiet, so I knew exactly what that student was thinking. At the
same time, I knew that a sense of order was necessary for the class as a whole to
succeed, so I was forced to take away recess time. This was a conflicting feeling and
action, but one that I felt was necessary to make.
Froyen and Iverson talk a lot about the different styles of classroom
management in Chapter 6. They talk about the assertive and nonassertive
leadership styles, along with the hostile leadership style (p. 180-190, 1999). In my
opinion, in order to most effective, teachers should probably start with the assertive
style, and then as the students begin to learn the teachers expectations, the teacher
can teach with more of a nonassertive style, and can let the students manage each
other in a mature way. This way you can work on teaching students to be
independent thinkers along with being well-behaved students in a classroom.
With the regular teacher being gone, I also have been left in charge of a few
small lessons. One of the lessons I was left in charge of was a review of faces, edges,
and vertices. This was a topic that the students were finally starting to get the hang
of, and my lesson was simply a review to drive the points home. However, I never
ended up teaching that lesson. While helping the substitute teach a few math
worksheets to the students, I could see that the worksheets were giving the students
a really hard time. There were multiple parts of the assignment that were giving the
students trouble. Eventually, I made the decision (along with the substitute) to forgo
my original lesson plan and spend more time going over and helping the students
with the current assignment. Rather than have the students not fully understand the
material and do the rest for homework, I felt as if it would be more beneficial for the
students to get some extra guided practice with the assignment and with problems
similar to the assignment.
After the math time was up, I felt as if it was a good decision. When I was
helping the students, I could see the looks in their eyes when they finally fully
comprehended a problem; this was something we would not have been able to
achieve otherwise. If there is one thing I have learned about teaching, its that you
always have to be ready to adjust on the fly!

Froyen, L. A., & Iverson, A. M. (1999). Schoolwide And Classroom Management: The
Reflective Educator-Leader (3rdrd ed., pp. 49-56). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Merill Publishing.