“At the beginning, let's say during the first two years of teaching, I was quite surprised (...) to really enjoy what I was doing (...). I had been told, ‘You'll see, the beginning is going to be a nightmare.’”
“Between my old job, my old life, and my new life, I spent two years at university, and that acted like a decompression chamber (...). And then I think I was well trained in the techniques of teaching. »
MENTORING AND OBSERVING
« The welcome I received at my school and the role of the school principal were crucial. »
“My principal has been a good mentor. He gives me good advice when I go to see him. I feel that he doesn't control me, but he suggests things to me. He makes me think about things.”
“The school system assigns us a mentor. I've made good use of my mentor because I tell myself that someone who has fifteen years of teaching experience and is a mentor naturally has tips and tricks to share with me, and I shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel. You have to use proven methods to save as much time as possible.”
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
“My principal gave me a number of tips and some of them have really stuck with me. They were about how to establish the disciplinary rules I was going to implement. He didn't give me his own rules. He said, ‘What rules would you like to put in place? Think about it over the summer and then explain them to me when school starts.’”
“During the first year, I applied fairly simple rules (...) If a student didn't follow the rules, I'd put a mark next to their name on the board. If their name was on the board and they broke the rules three times, then, let's say, they'd get a small punishment. And the small punishment was writing five lines reflecting on ‘I wasn't following instructions’ or ‘I was talking.’ It wasn't quite enough, but it helped me a lot.”
“A mentor once told me: ‘As soon as a student misbehaves, you stop and have the class review the rules. [You ask:] What are our rules for working together? How do we do things? You shouldn't hesitate to do this once a day, twice, ten times a day.’”
“So, during the month of September, we go over them a lot, then gradually less and less.”
“The number of so-called punishments I was giving—which weren't very harsh punishments—started to decrease enormously, which allowed me to be quite relaxed. I think the students sense that I'm relaxed, so they relax too. And at the same time they respect me. Then I'm able to work with them calmly and they're able to work calmly as well.”