Needing feedback on a trying class

Hello fellow TEPers,

I am sharing a post I made today in my online journal in the hopes that I can hear any and all suggestions for improvement that anyone has. Please read on, and if you have criticisms, comments, etc., please let me know. I am at my wit's end with one of my classes, and I am reaching out for assistance because I don't know what else to do.

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As I sat in the bathroom crying for over an hour after my afternoon class, I thought, "Today is definitely one of those days. I just want to give up and go home. I want someone to hold me. How am I ever supposed to do this once I have a class all my own?"

My first period class (10C) went well. The vast majority of the students were on time, which made me think that, for my other first period class that is usually full of stragglers (10A), the students have no excuse for being late and I'm going to be stricter about marking them tardy. The students did a vocab warm-up, a brainstorm about poetry, and we talked about the differences between poetry and prose. I thought Whew, that was easier than I thought it would be, and when I had questions for my mentor about my students' seeming lack of prior knowledge, my mentor assured me that the students were actually on track.

My afternoon class (10A) was a complete disaster. I timed the warm up and the brainstorm as I had for the previous class. The vocab warm up went fine. During the brainstorm debriefing, I could not get the students to stop talking about irrelevant things (e.g. music, basketball games, etc.). I tried waiting for them to be quiet -- didn't work. I tried telling those students who were participating that I couldn't hear them over their colleagues -- didn't work. I tried telling those who were trying to participate to raise their hands and not talk all at once because I couldn't hear them -- didn't work. After about 20 minutes of getting no where, I basically gave up on the lesson. Someone said, "Aw, miss, don't give up on us," and I said, "How can I teach you anything if you guys won't be quiet?" Students would yell at the others to be quiet -- didn't work. I asked the class, "What do you think the purpose of this class is?" I got about 4-5 answers, ranging from "helping us prepare for the MCAS" to "teaching us stuff," and I said, "Do you think you can do any of that if I can't teach because you guys are talking?" Someone suggested I yell at them, and I said, "I'm not going to yell at you. You guys are old enough that you should be mature enough to regulate your behavior so we can have a good discussion." [My classes are 10th grade.] Someone said something about needing respect, and I said, "How can you expect me to respect you if you won't give me any respect?" Didn't work. Those students who were not participating were still talking about whatever was of interest to them at the time. I sat there. I didn't know what to think or do. Finally, I passed out the study guide for the test tomorrow.

As two students were gathering their things to leave, one of them said, "You need to figure something out, miss." I said that I knew that, but I didn't know what to do. He suggested taking away points, and I replied, "Well, everyone in here is basically failing, so I don't think that would matter," and I turned away. While I was putting away materials, I felt the first tear slip down my cheek, and I escaped to the faculty bathroom before anyone else saw me. I sat in there for about 10 minutes before going out to my mentor teacher, who saw that I was upset and crying, and then I went to another faculty bathroom, gathered myself, walked around the building, drank some water, and commenced to crying again. I debriefed with my mentor after the last bell rang, still crying all the while.

I told a friend on the phone, I think what upset me most is not that I was taking their breaking of the rules personally but that, though students are aware of the purposes of the class and the rules for the class (e.g. when I ask them 5 or 6 times in 10 minutes to raise their hands to contribute and to be silent if not contributing to the discussion at hand), they still choose not to adhere and to create an environment that is challenging to learning. The idiocy behind that, the lack of respect for themselves [and others], is mind-boggling to me. How can they think that what they are doing is beneficial? And, granted, after I asked the question about whether their behavior was going to allow them to fulfill the purposes they had outlined for me verbally, a couple of the offenders settled down, but of the 5 or so that remained, they disrupted everyone.

My mentor, last week, said that she thought this class wasn't taking me seriously and that it would help if she were out of the room more, so she wasn't in there Friday or today. I thought, when she suggested that she leave more, that she was dead wrong, and, after today, I still think that.

Suggestions? Thoughts?

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To end, I would appreciate any and all feedback you have. You can be critical of something I said or did. You can make suggestions for strategies to try in class or things to say to the class. Anything. I feel like I'm dying here, and I need input, even if it is of a critical/negative nature. My mentor suggested being even more militant with the class, and taking away privileges such as discussions (e.g. having them do work they must do silently) in order to begin teaching them how to be silent in class. I'm not sure that being even more strict and giving out more zeros is the way to go, since students may take that as license to continue to be disruptive (e.g. thinking, "I'm failing anyway so what does it matter"). But, I also don't know what to do if not be more strict. Trying to talk to them about what they want to get out of the class, to maybe figure out how to get the class to be more student-centered vs. teacher-dependent, did not work. I feel like I'm at my wit's end here because strategies I have used that she has used all along --strategies which work perfectly well -- (such as writing down when students misbehave on a clipboard, which then affects their conduct grade; waiting calmly for students to settle down) just aren't working for this class when I am in front of it. :-(