Started the final quarter of my fifth year at EWU last night. Hard to believe that I have been teaching classroom management to college kids for half a decade now. Crazy to think that I almost passed up the opportunity, for it has been one of the most-fulfilling experiences of my professional life. It brings me joy every quarter, every year.

As always, our work begins with the fourth “R.” Relationships. I intimate to my college students that any success or failure I have had in the classroom has had everything to do with relationships. I emphasize this over everything else. This morning I stumbled upon the above graphic, and I cannot wait to share it with them next week. It perfectly captures the various and numerous elements that real relationships require. I am going to have my TA’s make a poster of this, so I can hang it in my classroom as a personal reminder and checklist to help guide my relationship building ventures day to day.  I was also thinking it could serve as a survey of sorts for the kids to evaluate how I did at the end of the year. Not only would it allow me to gain some general insight from their feedback, but also it would allow me to get some specific input on the different elements. It would help me determine if my walk matches my talk.

Busy day in 211 today. Performance task corrections and poems. The kids had to compose either a diamante, tanka, or pantoum poem, and today they will it to the class. Happy National Poetry Month.  Pushing kids out of their comfort zones.

Happy Wednesday, all.