Dealing with difficult students
SOME high school students exhibit irritating and disruptive behaviors, such as tardiness, cutting classes, cell phone usage during class and apathy. Others even become difficult to handle especially when they ignore rules and become indifferent towards good behavior.
These misbehavior of students can sap the energy of teachers. They can make teachers feel frustrated. Teachers are human, and in the face of such a protracted onslaught of negative behaviors that gets worse over time no matter how safe, structured, and consistent we are, no matter what consequences we use, we eventually give up. Eventually we get exhausted.
But this is because most teachers routinely invest huge amounts of energy into their most chal- lenging students, more than is healthy or sustainable. The thing is, we don't have to exhaust ourselves in order to keep caring or trying to reach a student.
How then can we help our most challenging students without completely depleting ourselves?
Well, we just have to believe in them, want to help them, and keep offering them the choice to do better. And we have to communicate to them in some way that we will be there for them, no matter what choices they make, because we care more about them than about their academic progress.
I have observed that teachers who make it long term and still are passionate about teaching 15 or 20 years later have certain qualities in common. For example, they: Have, and know how to use many effective tools for intervening with student misbehavior. Empathize with the rotten experiences kids must be dealing with outside the classroom if they are acting out inside the classroom. Don't let it get to them down when they intermittently have bad days or bad moments with kids. Don't see themselves as failures when a student doesn't succeed or change his or her behavior.
Indeed, it isn’t failure when we try all year but aren't able to reach or help a particular student. Failure is when we stop caring about students and stop trying to help them. As a teacher, remember that no matter what time of the school year, your students deserve your best. Learn from your failures. Learn from your successes. Every student is worth the trouble. Every student has the potential to succeed. Every teacher has the knowledge to know the difference between working hard and hardly working. Every teacher has the power to create experiences that shape the future of a student positively. Jeanny Wansi-tiyab