I have two constant fears as a parent. One is that other people will think I’m a bad father. The other is that they will be right.
Oh, I’m a decent father in the natural sense of affections and good intentions and all that. I love my kids and want to do what’s best for them. As far as the actual details of it, whether I discipline them too much or too little, whether I allow them too much freedom or I’m overly protective, whether I’m setting a good example or not, I’m not so sure.
I guess I let them watch too much TV. That’s because I watch too much TV. I’m also pretty sure I don’t read to them enough. That’s because they very often object when I try to read to them. It’s largely a language issue. That’s a big problem with us as far as the TV watching, too. I try to insist they only watch stuff in English, but that’s an argument I lose more and more often.
The situation has recently become much more complex, because now I teach English at my son’s school, and I actually have him in two classes a week. The first of those two classes, when the whole class is there and the classroom teacher is very often sitting in the back of the room, is a piece of cake. The 2nd one, which is sort of an extracurricular activity, and there are only about 5 or 6 kids, and I’m alone with them, is a nightmare. They don’t listen to me, they run around the room, and my disciplinary options are limited. Can’t smack the little bastards, and the big scream – I can scream really, really loud – loses effectiveness if it’s used more often than once in a very blue
I teach 2nd-5th grade, but it's something like this
moon.
Anyway, in one of the other classes, I rearranged the seating, putting all the bad kids on one side of the room, and teaching to the good ones. I explained the seating arrangement to their Czech teacher when she came back into the room, but the children still seemed less than terrified. She chastised them mildly and that was that. We’ll see how they behave next time, but I think I lost a bit of cred.
But you can’t rearrange seating when nobody’s sitting down. So, I tried reading to them. They sat for awhile, but then started wandering off. I forced Sam to sit down by threatening to not take him to football practice and that at least gave me one out of five, but I had no such leverage over the others and I think, at that moment, Sam felt the terrible injustice of having his father for a teacher.
So, like every other teacher, I will just continue and try to muddle through. But, as somebody who doesn’t do a real good job of enforcing discipline with my own kids, I really, really suck at disciplining other peoples’.
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dude, I used to teach English myself. one thing I know almost for sure? don’t separate the ‘good’ kids from the ‘bad’–you’re just giving the ‘bad’ kids the chance to do things you can’t see. I tried (with some success), to pair one ‘good’ kid with one ‘bad’ one, giving each responsibility for making sure the other learned a lesson or word, whatever. giving them responsibility for something seems to get them thinking that they have a stake in the lesson, which might make them calm down. if you try this (or something else that this idea leads you to), pls let me know if it works out for you.
Pairing is good. I remember one incident where it worked for me brilliantly. I was in 5th grade and public speaking was an absolute nightmare for me. Intense shyness which I compensated for by being a smartass. It’s still somewhat my pattern today, but now I’m smoother about it – thanks to the day that the teacher paired me up with Luther, the coolest kid in the class. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something along the lines of “never let ’em see you sweat.” It worked magic.
So, thanks for the advice. I’ll try to work it in.