Keep your cool, don't engage in confrontations

Today was a bit of an off day. Today, I came back after being off on Monday. Apparently, one of my students did not behave for the substitute. She was given a detention for playing with glitter glue and not putting it away after being asked to put it away several times. The sub, who is another math teacher, wrote her a detention slip after class. So today, I had to give it to the student. However, she would not sign it. I did engage in a little confrontation with her, but I managed to cut it short. I ended up tearing up that detention slip up and giving her two detentions for not following directions. She said she wouldn't sign it because what the teacher said was not true.

I wish I had done 2 things differently: 1) give her the slip before or after class and 2) instead of engaging in the confrontation, give her the option of signing it or taking the 2 detentions for not following directions.

In the end, I think it ended well. She wasn't too mad at the end of the period. She was more scared that she would get in trouble at home for having to stay after school. The weird thing is that even after this incident, this student still acted the way she normally does; talking to me about her upcoming quinceanera for example. I would have assumed that she was going to start an even bigger confrontation. But no, she accepted the punishment and I continued on with class.