Well, I Never!

Do you remember that awful Year 8 class I wrote about a while back?

For those who don't, a quick recap: I have been teaching a Year 8 class since September who can be politely described as being "obnoxious" (imagine what I would call them if I were being rude!). We started our battles on Tuesday afternoon and fortuntely, due to a timetable change, things improved (a little) when the lesson was moved to first period Friday morning.

I said "a little" and I meant it.

Keeping this in mind, you can imagine my sheer delight when I taught the class last week...and had to pinch myself, wondering if the kids hadn't been replaced with alien look-alikes. The children actually sat down to work, listened to my instructions and let me teach!

I was so impressed with this about-change in their behaviour that I sent a mass mailing out to each set of parents praising their kid's behaviour.

I've gone over the lesson in my mind, time and time again and can't understand what it is that I did differently. In fact, I didn't think I'd say it, but the class was a pleasure to teach.

I know I'll probably regret all this praise and wonderment, because they'll revert to their "normal" behaviour at the first opportunity, but then I suppose I can remind them of how good they can be if they just make that little bit of effort.

It's for lessons like these that I went into teaching and it's most reassuring to be reminded of this every now and again.

...otherwise, the future looks too bleak.