Humble beginnings

I was just hired to teach 6th grade science way back when. Wow, my first teaching job. I was nervous, excited and SCARED. I spent the summer searching for things to do that first week. I kept hearing that you had to get them busy as soon as they entered the classroom. I was also nervous about not really having a discipline plan in place. I started searching on the the web and finally came across this site called Power Teaching. It looked and sounded amazing. I immediately starting reading all I could and began practicing. Well school finally started and I began using the techniques from the website. It was a little rocky at first but that was mostly me getting used to it. The kids LOVED it. Now I teach second grade and they really love it. I love the Teach/Okay, the five class procedures, the practice cards, the scoreboard, ALL of it. I have to really fight not talking so much in class, but I love to talk. I have to force myself to get the kids more involved. I did recently start using the teach/okay with our weekly vocabulary cards. I have seen a small increase in the test scores covering this material. My struggle now is getting the "shy" kids to turn and teach their neighbor. It also seems interesting that the kids who I see NOT doing the teach/okay do poorly on the tested material. Oh and I also love the YES/NO WAY and the QT. Both are excellent ways to do a quick check on understanding.