Educating Esme Response Paper

I found Educating Esme to be refreshing, honest, intelligent, quick witted, smart and logical. As I was reading the book there were times when my jaw literally dropped and I laughed out loud. Esme is the type of teacher who has so much back bone it might not be good for her; even though she is right most of the time. I was very comforted many times when reading this book for many reasons.

Esme begins the book with the most prominent issue facing new teachers; discipline and classroom management. Luckily for Esme, she had a great cooperating teacher in one of her student placements. The teacher taught her to ignore bad behaviors until you can’t stand them anymore. In the school district I am at now, the discipline of the school is very strict and I have a lot of support if I were to discipline a student. My cooperating teacher told me that it’s a good thing if the administration knows your name for positive things not for discipline problems you cannot take care of in your own classroom. As I have had to learn by experience and practice, classroom management is all based on judgment calls. There is no rule book for classroom management and each and every class is different. Having read this book a few months ago when EDU 511 first started I have had a lot of time to be in the classroom. In practice, there are certain behaviors that I have learned to ignore. Some behaviors such as crudeness (as witnessed today), nervous habits of students (a student of mine puts his desk on his feet and balances the desk throughout my lecture), and letting my students run to the bathroom at the beginning of class are things that I have not let get to me. I have been able to pick and choose my battles. You do not want to have a fight with students every day over things that are not life threatening. I cannot remember if it was in this book or a discussion or a reading I did. The author, or discussion implied that if you get into a fight with a student over little things it becomes a stand off between authority and insignificant rebellions that deter from the real point of being in class; learning.