The Small Details matter.

Okay, so this is another teaching post. Sue me :)

I have students from all backgrounds. I have students getting C-'s and a couple students getting 100%. I have students who have to take time off from school because of anxiety. I have a student who cuts herself. I have a student who already knows she's going pre-med. And she's a freshman.

One of the students above was tardy in late august. Students are requires to fill in a tardy referral form, and once they've had three unexcused tardies, they have to serve a detention. Well, this student was tardy on the 10th, so i set her form aside to call her mom that afternoon. she was tardy for a third time on the 11th, so when i called her parents, i had to say that she was going to have a 45 minute detention.

She was late again today. She was obviously flustered. So I just kind of let her cool off while I took care of business for the day. When I went around to check the homework, I asked her to see me at the end of class. By the time 50 minutes had rolled around, she had calmed down and accepted the fact that the detention was a consequence of her lateness and nothing mean or specified just at her. I made a small decision to let something wait to settle (BUT still deal with it, of course), and it was the RIGHT decision. Thank goodness.

I want to make sure that I don't get "riled up" over a small decision that may have gone poorly.

But I'm going to anyway.

Crap I need to work on (This is more for me than my loyal readers...):
Don't ALWAYS saw what's on your mind. The kids don't need to know that, and it's just extra info that might confuse them anyway.
Get a schedule for the upper levels in the 3-4-5 class. They're getting bored. They'll stay in the class, but you don't want them to get an A without having learned anything.
Watch the New Orleans and Versailles DVDs and make worksheets to go with them.
Make a flipping sub packet!