Making Decisions

I have found it very difficult to think about my own teaching practice. It has been the first time that I really stopped for a minute to think about myself and reflect upon my own practice.
Most of the years I spent studying during my career I could grasp reflections and experiences of other teachers, and many times I based my own decisions on their practices. But this year, I started in a different way. As it is the first year that I have my group since the beginning of the year and I already feel comfortable and “inside” the system of the school, I have decided that I would try to be more independent and confident and to trust myself whenever I have to make decisions.
That’s why, every time I find myself facing any teaching situation, I think about the way to solve or to manage it and then, if my “solution” or decision doesn’t work, I resort to other teachers’ opinion or pieces of advice.
I have realized that we are constantly making decisions inside the classroom, those may vary from easy ones, for example, changing the focus of an activity that is already planned, up to the most difficult ones, as it is finding the way to help a student who has social or learning problems.  I have learnt that it is not useful to doubt or to show myself insecure in front of the kids when a problem appears because children get to notice that and depending on the situation; they take advantage of it and they find you easily malleable and they resort to different strategies to do what they really want, and in a way, in my opinion, the teacher loses part of her authority.
I have experienced in some occasions when I started teaching that there was a shift in roles inside the class and because of being insecure children finally ended having power over me. As I didn’t feel comfortable and then it was difficult to rearrange the positions inside the classroom in those situations, I decided that I should do something to change this reaction.
Due to this fact, this year I started being more confident and to be quicker at the time of making decisions. Whenever they ask me something I think if that is feasible or not, and I try to think the advantages or disadvantages of it, and usually I explain them the reason of my answer. For example, they usually ask me to listen to music while they are doing their homework. At the beginning I said no, because I thought it would be a mess, and they would start misbehaving. But then, I realized that it might be a good way to make them relax, as they are a very talkative group. So, I made my decision to prove it. I talked to them and I set the limits: music should be appropriate and in English, and they can only listen to it while they are copying from the board, or doing an individual activity in their folders. Of course, if they shout, if they sing, or if they start dancing, I will turn it off.
Believe me that it works. Only one period during the week I allow them to play music in the classroom, and they really enjoy it and they end working much better because music motivates and relaxes them.
Every time I have to make a decision I try to think the way of benefit about it. I used to think in a very strict way about what kids can or cannot do during the lessons, but as I consider myself an open-minded teacher, I am trying to feel free when making decisions because I end up having more resources to “stretch out” the lesson and make them work better.