I failed today

I’m a first year, 9th grade reading teacher. And I completely broke in front of my students. I started a few weeks ago, and have been dealing with constant defiance. Students don’t listen, follow classroom/school rules, write ups mean nothing to them, and parents constantly tell me they don’t know what to do to help their child when I call them.

I was yelled at by a parent today and blamed for their child’s write up today. I was told this is my job and I signed up for her son being disrespectful to me and I need to learn how to handle it besides writing him up. She then told me she would do everything in her power to have her son removed from my class. All of this was said in front of my AP who was in the meeting.

I then immediately had the worse class period so far to date right after. I was trying to instruct my students on how the remainder of the semester will go, but a majority, besides two or three, kept talking right over me. Using all tactics I typically use to get their attention didn’t work. So I stopped instructing and instead put up an assignment that was due by the end of class. They became upset by this and I reminded them of the policy I instilled at the beginning, we can have fun in the class as I had planned, but if they refused to listen I would just give direct assignments instead that are not fun to do. They did begin to work on the assignment and just before the end of class, I told them that they could stop, I wouldn’t be grading it. I was wanting them to see how the rule would be enforced, but the next assignment would be graded. This angered them beyond belief that I wasted their time. They began mocking me as I was trying to explain why I had them do the assignment. I broke down at this point and started crying while almost the whole class laughed at me.

Once the bell rang, I quickly left the classroom so I could go compose myself for my next class and rumors quickly spread that my class had made me quit today. Many students were surprised, and disappointed that I hadn’t. I really am starting to think I should though.

I want to help these kids, but I don’t know what to do. Admin keeps telling me to keep writing them up, but write ups mean nothing to them, nor do their parents care. Plus, it’s just constantly adding more work on me every single day when I’m already drowning from the work as a first year teacher. One or two kids would be reasonable to make reports on and create write ups, but 15+ students a day is just impossible. Classroom rules mean nothing to the students, and assigned seating is ignored. I don’t know how to manage this.