This semester has many challenges for me. I have done things that I am very proud of and will do again and this semester carries with it things that if I could, I would go back and change. There are not many things that I would do differently, but those that I could are all in the arena of classroom management. This, by far, has been my biggest challenge. It has been difficult for me to deal with students who do not want to learn but who also want all of the attention on themselves. These are the students that I struggle with and the students that have given me the majority of my problems this semester.
I am sorry that I did not figure out the best way that I am comfortable with in dealing with students who act out. At first, I would just fuss at them in class, in front of everyone. I quickly realized, however, that this only fueled their craving of that attention. I was turning the attention of the entire class on that one student, which is what he wanted. It quickly became frustrating for me because he would not stop talking to other students and distracting them from their work. I tried moving his seat away from his friends and that worked for a while...until he started yelling across the room to them. After this happened, I went over and talked to him quietly at his seat, so as not to draw the attention of the whole class to him. He was quieter after that, but it did not solve the problem for the next days. The following day it seemed like he did things just to test me to see how far he could push me. Finally at the end of the class I told him I was going to call his mom and his friends' moms because all of them had been a distraction that week. They were good the next day, but only the next day. This behavior continued for several weeks and was only making me dread teaching that class.
Finally I decided to talk to the students who were the problem. I told them they were the leaders in that class and they needed to step up to the plate and lead the class in the right direction. This actually worked really well, but my mistake was that I did not remind them on a regular basis of what we had talked about.
In the future, to combat this issue, I would 1) not give so many chances to fix their behavior and start following the procedures for dealing with bad behavior (talk to students, move their seats, call parents, detention, and finally referral) and 2) I would remind the students every day that I need their help in keeping the class on track. Students like to feel like the teacher needs them and this is a great way to do it!
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