Readjustment and Sixth Grade

The first week at each new rotation has been hard - between learning new kids, a new schedule/routine, a new wake up time, a new bedtime, and coping strategies for a new age group, it's difficult to think straight, let alone get enough sleep to process it all. This one was especially difficult, as I am still living in the second rotation - trying to finish grading papers, going back to meet guest speakers, and say goodbye to the kids (with 150 homemade chocolate chip cookies in tow, I might add).

I have loved getting to know the sixth graders, though. I think they're way more up my alley than anything I have had so far. I have had to seriously start to readjust my ideas about classroom management and environment, though. Partially because of the types of classrooms I have been in and partially because of the older kids I have taught thus far, the general climate of the rooms I have taught in has been pretty orderly, noise kept to a minimum unless we're specifically doing group work, and energy level fairly calm.

HA! Not so for sixth graders - EVER! I think this is really fine with me, though. When I think back to the summer and how I envisioned my classroom, it was much closer to where I am now than where I have been in rotations 1 or 2. I loved them, don't get me wrong - but like I said, these kids and this style is much more what I like. These kids are loud, they need to make jokes, they need to talk to friends, they need to make jokes and call me "Tina" (yes, as in the llama from Napoleon), they need to be prodded sometimes (scratch that, constantly) to get back on task, and difficult as it is for me to admit, they need to put the stuffed animals in the library in compromising positions from time to time. True story.

I just have to figure out where the lines are between letting them be who they are and do what they need to do and putting down the hammer when it's time to get things done and be 'the teacher'. I do know that if I tried to maintain the level of control I have experienced in junior high and high school with these kids, it would be disastrous and would end in constant nagging, kids who would never be on my side, and a massive headache.

They're still so fun in the sixth grade and so not-yet-jaded. The world is coming at them fast and hard and they'll start to see the injustices soon enough without me making their last few months or weeks of 'kid-dom' and free-spirit disappear any faster than it must. If they've gotten by thus far in a loud, mean, and disinterested world and can still laugh and joke with me, I better soak that up and love it, not steal it away. So I think it's better to just let things go and ride it out - let kids be kids.