Small Successes

I think it is always important to stay positive no matter what obstacles you face. However, I have found this year to be one of the hardest for me to stay positive about because I am face every day with so much failure and so much stress. I will say I have had my share of days that I would rather be in a car accident on the way to work then have dealt with the students on that day, but I have also had fabulous days.
I have one class of eighth graders that are the worst behaved class in the school. They yell, they scream, they fight, cuss, throw everything at me and each other, anything you can think of that is poor behavior they do. It got to a point where I was not getting anything done and I had not taught them anything in weeks. So, I asked for help. I went to the assistant principle and talked to her about what I should do to fix the problem. She told me to change my warm ups to something easier and have them watch me grade them on completion as opposed to making them turn it in for me to check later. She also said that she would come and watch a class. Both of these happened as well as their teacher walking them to class every day so that they all showed up as opposed to running the halls all class.
The day that the AP was there was quite possibly the most amazing display of perceived power that I have ever seen. The entire period they were silent. The students raised their hands to answer my questions, they asked their own questions. It was an orderly well run class. It was the first time I have ever taught in a class room like that. It was awesome. She did this on a Monday, and for the rest of the week I held over their head the possibility of her coming in and talking to them again. It was the best week I have had with them. They actually learned about triangles and the triangle inequality and classifying triangles. It was awesome. This week of success with one class definitely renewed my confidence in myself as a teacher as well as my joy for being in the classroom. Since then, they are their regular selves, but i will remember that week. It was a lot of fun. My one question is what can I do to myself to get the kind of control that my AP has?