Behind closed doors

it felt like real life and I didn't even know it until after steve came back at the end of the classroom. There was one class where he left, and the students thought they didn't have to learn anything today. I appreciate those who were patient during my lecture pauses, but it's the ones I look down on that have shaped my philosophy of teaching. It was too bad that those who are more mature had to suffer with the wicked.  I tried my best to weed out those who think they can have their own world going on in my classroom, but if I am ready to teach, and the students want to keep yapping away, that's fine since I control the grades.  I turn it on them to take action and act more respectable in a classroom.  Enter the power-trip.  It was best that I stopped trying for the day and turned the class period (with 15 minutes left) into a reading assignment with a handful of questions to be turned in on monday.  The wicked wont do it.  The mature ones know better and they will come out okay in my class, especially if the wicked shape up.  They use to be one of my favorite periods, not so much anymore.  My last period was wonderful.  Time flew, I got through my lecture, did my demonstrations, they had time to work on the assignment, double extra credit points, the whole nine yards for how a classroom should be managed.  Then Steve walked in, and I apologized he missed it.  The part I want to get across is that I dont regret any of the actions I took for any of the periods I taught.  I am just trying to set them up for success in the long run, and it is not my problem if they choose to head down a path that will ruin them.  That sounds a lil harsh, and didn't come out the way I wanted to say it, but my naive beliefs as a teacher are slowly disappearing into what its really like to be a teacher.  The bad news is that I feel fine, the good news is that it gets better.