The new Carnival of Education features Ms. Smlph’s excellent advice for new teachers. Among other things, she tells them to plan, plan, plan some more — and then be prepared for things to go wrong.
There will be a fire drill, tornado drill, school-intruder drill, or a drill to practice what to do in the case of rapture. Do not let this throw you off. You must act, in front of your children, as if you fully expected Jesus to descend from the clouds in the middle of your lesson on subject-verb agreement. “See how he descends, children. We use descends because Jesus is first-prophet-singular. Very good.”
I also like her tactic of calling parents before their kid does something wrong.
If I do have to call a parent before having delivered that “positive” call, I always start by saying “I thought you needed to know that your child is not showing the behavior you expect of him/her.”