ABSTRACT
It was October my first year of teaching. It was a Thursday, in fact, during my 4th hour class. This day and that class are forever ingrained in my mind. I could not tell you what I was attempting to teach that day, but I can tell you that not a whole lot of teaching occurred. Things in my classes had generally been going downhill, and this day was where I hit rock bottom. The kids walked into class, the bell rang, and literally not one of them was in a seat or even pretending like it was time to move toward their seats. I remember standing at the front of the room asking kids to have a seat. They were so loud that only a couple of students heard me. I started working my way around the room to the various groups of students and tried to break them up and get them seated. I was starting class off completely frustrated, but this had been my routine for a few weeks now. There seemed to be no other way to do it. This whole ‘asking kids to take a seat’ process was always a highly stressful 3–5 minutes for me, but I always felt some relief when I was able to begin the lesson.
