Can I?!!...

I sent my first student to the Principals office today, and he sort of snubbed me for the rest of the day, which kinda sucked...but he did spend the rest of the day trying to make it up to me, and behaved for me.
Feels like a bit of a victory, but it's so tough, having to be firm and raise my voice to these kids is not something I enjoy, but I can slowly see that they are listening to me more and more.
The kid that I sent to the Principals office was pushing me so far, he just kept pushing and pushing. Tony (Supervising teacher) offered to step in, but I asked him to leave it with me, because I wanted to try and sort this on my own, see what I would do with a tough situation.
So Tony gave me the class for the afternoon, and they really turned it on. Dilemma after dilemma. We had a punch-up in the yard at lunch-time and the boys tried to bring it into the class that afternoon, at one point I had to physically pull the boys away from each other, while trying to get the class focussed on the afternoon activities. It was a pretty stressful session, but I got through it, and to say that I was relieved when the home-bell went at 3pm would be an understatment.
I chatted to Tony this afternoon about how the day went, he said that he was impressed with how I handled it, and gave me some tips for how to deal with situations like that should they, God forbid, occur again. All up it was good, stressful, daunting, breaking...but I'm learning and I guess this is what it's all about.

It was my last day today, but I'll be back at the same school with the same class next term for 4 weeks...so that'll be interesting.

I got home today, pulled into my parking space and sat in the car, and just cried, I think it was a combination of relief, stress and the breaking.
I've had to change my attitude to teaching, and often it's felt as though I've had to change who I am when I step into the classroom and thats tough.
As I sat there in my car, tears streaming my cheeks I was questioning if I would be able to do this , could I do this job...
I don't know how long I was sitting there, but when I lifted my head from the stearing wheel I realized that the sun was setting, from my parking spot at the top of the hill, I could see straight out, and all that was there was sky...eternal sky. It was beautiful!
And before I knew it, out loud I was whispering, "Lord I know I can do this, I was designed to do this...your just growing me up"

With that I decided to stop being such a sook, I took a deep breath, wiped my cheeks, blew my nose and walked inside.

I can do this, I need to do this, but more than anything I want to do this!