despair or wrong expectations?

The little ones gave a hard time again.
I think that the discipline issues in this have also gone up to the Principal, as he came today, to see how they are doing and warn them that if discipline did not improve they would not be able to keep coming to scripture class.

I felt despair, because I did not know how to manage them properly. They show so much respect for some of the other teachers...
A solution would be to divide the group. Two things are needed: a classroom and a teacher. The scripture class coordinator will try to find a new room, where an other Buddhist teacher could take part of the group. I think this would help.

The second class was great again. Two of the kids that are normally noisy and restless did really well. They sat quietly for the 15 minutes of Bhante's meditation.
When we started several of them lied down, as they had done last week. I told them that since they were doing much better, they should try to do the extra effort and start sitting, with the back straight, eyes closed,...
Interestingly some of those that last term were doing great this term are more restless, and those that seemed hopeless, are now doing great!
Of course, this seems logical, but seeing it like this makes the realization much more clear.

Today, I think the factors that affect the quality of the session include:

- Appropriateness of the activity (learning design?): For the little ones either hands on activity or very short story (1 page max). I'm still not sure how to get the meditation going.

- Teacher's mood (related to the personal 'development' of the teacher - wisdom and compassion): this affects my voice and what I say. When I felt despair today, in the first class, I am sure that it affected how I behaved in both classes. At he very least I was not as happy and energetic as I would have been. It probably appears as lack of self confidence... and the kids pick up on that.

- Time management: The class is so short (30 min) that any distraction affects what we can do.

- Student's expectations/habits: I need to develop this better. Repeating the same type of activities every week helps them understand better what to expect. I think I have been trying different things every week and it has a negative effect.

- Teacher's expectations: Although I have reduced the expectations on the achieving side, the bottom line is that I'm still expecting things, as when I was surprised that student X did so well. These are also expectations that I should learn to note and manage.