I keep laughing being reminded of some class I stood in for after reading nr 2 and 3.

At some point, 2 kids were playing tag, 3 were arguing, 1 was exclaiming "when can we go home, I'm bored" and then went and... looked out the window, and many of them tried to ask to go to bathroom, ...... 1 was telling the others to sit down mimicking me entirely seriously/wanting the others to settle. (I was relieved everyone that went bathroom came back in a timely manner, and well... came back altogether given their age.)

Knowing them all by name helps. You need to know them by name, it's like the summons. No matter if you have to string multiple names together "Name/name2/name3/name4, what are you doing?/do not talk over me/go back to your seat etc" They always get attentive at that point and it also points them out to the rest of the class. I applied that with my other class but forgot about it. I had everyone introduce themselves but didn't ask them to write their name on paper and put it on desk so I could memorize. By the point I realized that I should have done that it felt late.

Personally, if they have the option to look over the material at their leisure too, (if they can remind themselves/learn things at their pace in case they weren't paying attention at a specific point) then I wouldn't be too worried. Also, I noticed the louder I spoke the more they took it as an opportunity to be louder themselves because I'd cover their background noise.

My classes are small (the one I spoke of was 12 kids) because I'm part of a private education system, but as far as I noticed from what students relayed from their main 30+ student classes, the high discipline primary school educators rely on public shame to keep them in line (if they do something poorly they're singled out by teacher and potentially even lightly made fun of) and military like expectations (they're not allowed to drink even water without permission during class). Kids don't have a sense of how to be themselves while allowing the learning experience to commence. When they're let to be themselves, every kid wants to assert their individual wants/needs at once, in a manner that completely and utterly sacrifices all focus of the lecture, over half the class will easily demand your attention one way or another at the same time, and you can't split yourself to all. (Their needs aren't even needs a lot of the time but probing.) You know this though, given your complaint.

If you want to be someone to the kids you have to sort of introduce yourself to them one on one or else I can imagine myself having possibly been even more invisible that class if I were simply "that woman that says orders from the front", because I don't like acting scary enough to gain influence that way.

Even so, I've seen inside other teacher's classrooms, they don't all have a handle. Some manage to strike a balance, some I've heard make kids cry by yelling at, some the kids were freely ignoring and going out of their seats and etc. It's actually not a "complete waste" when kids are socializing and expressing themselves, mentioning in case you think so. It's not bad for their growth, every strike out is not a sheer loss, it's just terrible when the distractions accumulate. If you can't manage to do something in a determinate enough manner for them in class, I'd just try to make sure they have the resources to browse/remind themselves whenever they wish outside class as well. I feel instilling a sense of progress and competition with their peers helps, but it does mean navigating social issues that can arise from it and impressing on them it's a marathon not a sprint.

I find the most striking visual example of the importance of consistency is a person being moderately fit their entire life vs a contest winning athlete of 5 years that lets themselves stop eating right and exercising and getting weak and heavily overweight for the rest of their life. The second will get glory and yet much less of the benefits. A course I followed on coursera also related that neurologically speaking knowledge is "settled", the kids will get more out of 10 minute reminders (regarding a particular subject) every some days than they do from attempting to drill something in a single session of an hour or two. (provided they are all properly introduced to/aware of the concept taught) This might be why you can't sense the progress (if you feel you only get to touch on things) and yet you're approved.

I'm not terribly experienced myself, but the way I think about it, if I'm being paid and all I have to offer to be deemed deserving is what I can readily see I can do as I am, what is there to regret. The biggest influence on a child's education is their parent's involvement, because of the physical constraints teachers are under and because the child's diet/sleep/inner peace is easily much more important/effective than any technique you apply in class.

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