Not so proud moment...

During the first week I taught my seventh period class, which I had not officially taken over yet I was merely filling in for my absent teacher, I had one of my not so proud moments of my early teaching career. I had a student that I was continually reprimanding, and refused to let me get my work done. All of a sudden I found myself doing something that my cooperating teacher told me not to do-- arguing with the student. This eventually escalated into an argument in the class, and the student getting emotional, until I gave the student the option to either leave the class or sit down and be quiet.

There were several things that I could have done to prevent this action. First of all, I never should have argued with the student. Secondly, instead of calling the student out in front of the class several times, the first few times I should have just whispered in the student's ear asking her to pay attention and stop misbehaving. Thirdly, I should have either pulled her up to my desk and talked to the student quietly or talked to the student outside. I continuously tried applying close proximity to the student; however, that did not work. It seems to me that there were a lot more little actions that I could have taken to avoid this in retrospect; however, I did learn a lot from this. For example, how little things go a long way, and how little minuscule things could escalate in a classroom and as the teacher I have to control that. I've learned a lot about how I should encounter those situations, and luckily enough I have not had another instance since; however, I know that the time will come that something crazy will happen and I'll just have to take in mind how to handle the situation.