Ms Milano made quite a few errors on her first day as a teacher * she allowed the students to guide her to the front of the class and allowed them to stay at the front of the class instead of being affirmative. * she shouted which is another mistake *she insulted year 12 class by calling them 5 year olds and not very bright ones at that hence making a judgement about her students.
Trent | (203.40.30.252) | Tuesday, 7 May 2002 4:58:05 PM
The mistakes that Ms Milano made on her first day were: *not addressing the issue of racism in the classroom. Instead she just told the offending student to quieten down. *She also persisted in telling the class to be quiet after she could see that they were more intent on mocking her after her previous attempts. She needed a new strategy to get them to listen to her. *Another mistake that she made was not telling the two boys who escorted her into the classroom to sit down, she let them clean the board and address the class first. She didn’t set the rules from the start.
Cass | (63.34.228.146) | Tuesday, 7 May 2002 8:02:13 PM
I agree with the responses so far and will add a couple more. Firstly she didn't address the issue of the mobile phone well, if at all (?). I don't think confiscating it would've been the answer as she hadn't set any rules yet (though there may have been school-wide rules...) She could have at least given a warning to everyone, using that particular incident as an example. Secondly, she let her irritation with some students influence how she treated others, eg. she was terse with one student (Rosa?) who hadn't done anything more wrong than adjust her name during the roll call. Therefore she put the student off-side before they'd even begun.
Cass | (63.60.244.217) | Monday, 13 May 2002 5:43:26 PM
Regarding the question of what I'd do differently if I were in Ms Milano's position, I would have done my best to keep the distance between teacher and students from the beginning; ie., as Maria and Trent suggested in response to the last question, I wouldn't have allowed myself to be escorted to the front and introduced by a student. I also would have reacted quite differently regarding the mobile phone (see my comments above) and not insulted the students' maturity and intelligence by saying they were acting like 5-year-olds and animals, no matter how badly I thought they were behaving.
Maria | (198.142.94.66) | Wednesday, 15 May 2002 11:43:00 AM
In trying to manage Ms Milano's class more appropriately I would make sure that I was at the classroom before any of the students arrived so it was made aware that I was the teacher. I would have put my name up on the board before the class came in and as they were filing in I would ask them to take their seats quietly and begin taking the role. I would have sent one of the rowdier students to the office to set an example that talking will not be tolerated whilst taking the role. I agree that Ms MIlano allowed her emotions and reactions to fluctuate and I would have tried to be as firm as possible with the students.
Trent | (203.40.30.104) | Wednesday, 15 May 2002 1:07:42 PM
I would have listened to the clas more, as Cass mentioned, listenign to Rosa's request in terms of what she likes to be called, this would lead to better student teacher relations in the long term. Also i feel that she needed to ignore the behaviour of the attention seeking pupils. Although I can see that this would be hard to do it is necessary because the students wouldn't be getting the attention they deserve.
Louise | (10.1.153.87) | Sunday, 19 May 2002 1:27:59 PM
It was obvious to me that the biggest mistake Ms Milano made was to call her class a bunch of animals! The response she recieved confirmed the fact that she should have continued with her lesson objectives and acknowledged the students whose behaviour was appropriate rather than shouting. My second observation was the way she responded to each and every silly remark made while the role was being read. Rather than encourage the misbehaving students, she should have kept reading the names and, if they did not answer they would be marked absent.
Louise | (10.1.153.87) | Sunday, 19 May 2002 1:30:33 PM
It was obvious to me that the biggest mistake Ms Milano made was to call her class a bunch of animals! The response she recieved confirmed the fact that she should have continued with her lesson objectives and acknowledged the students whose behaviour was appropriate rather than shouting. My second observation was the way she responded to each and every silly remark made while the role was being read. Rather than encourage the misbehaving students, she should have kept reading the names and, if they did not answer they would be marked absent.