Happy Friday all!
It's been a draining week and a half, that's for sure! I really wanted to sit down and just throw all of my frustrations out on here last night, but I decided to wait until I had some time to spend with my new puppy so that I was in a happy state of mind for my first post. Warning: I'm very exhausted so this will probably be a tad wordy and unorganized! :)
My co-op, DYAD teacher, and I have been having behavioral problems with our lower section, the main problem being respecting one another and calling each other names. This is to be expected because of their age, but it gets to be a point that it's so distracting to us and other students that we have had to skip some things in our lessons because we run out of time from having to stop and get students to settle down and stop talking/disrespecting one another. We have tried to come up with seating arrangements so that this issue isn't as bad, but we are at the point where we can't move seats anymore because nothing really works.
Where am I going with this, you might ask? Well, the second half of the week was parent-conferences at Reynolds (as Jess and Jackie both know). Most of our lower level students came with the parents who showed up and it was a real eye-opener. There was one parent who came right out and said they were going to "whoop their child into shape." Yes, that was sadly a direct quote. I know my students have problems outside of school, I guess I just didn't realize it was an everyday thing since it's not something I would have experienced at home.
What I got out of conferences was that I shouldn't be constantly correctly students' behavior in a negative manner like we have resorted to now (and yes, I know how horrible that sounds), but rather enact a more positive spin. So instead of lunch detention, I'm going to try telling that class that if they focus for the class, they can have a certain amount of free time at the end of the day or during advisory.
I never really knew how much seeing a student with their parent during a conference could impact my view of behavior management, but realize now just how powerful that can be.
Kort,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. Parent/Teach conferences were a bit of a rough week and it was eyeopening and heartbreaking all at the same time to see how some of our kids are treated at home. I now understand the same thing that you do: they are used to the punishment, so it's almost as though theyve become immune to it. It also broke my heart to know that one of my girls (who is a constant trouble for all the other teachers except me) is apparently a constant trouble at home and her parents deal with her by locking her in her room as soon as she gets home. As informative as the meetings can be, I have to say, they are definitely not one of my favorite parts of being a teacher.