I think I finally had that day when I kind of questioned my classroom management methods. In fact, it was the first day when I couldn't wait to get out of the school!
Long story short, the students were very hard to deal with and were literally off the walls and extremely disrespectful. I actually had a student tell me no four times when I told him to go out and get a drink because he was sleeping during class. My co-op stepped in (thank goodness!) and took him out of the room, but I took a step back and felt a little defeated.
I was so frustrated by the lack of listening and respect being shown by the entire class in general that I gave the students a 5 minute timeout. They had to put their heads on the desk and couldn't talk (or touch) one another until I said it was time to move on. While they were in their timeout, my co-op and I moved a couple of students' seats permanently. Once all was said and done, the students were back to "normal" and we could finally move on.
This is really a frustrated vent on my end and I have a disrespectful and unruly class in comparison to most, but how do you all manage a situation when students absolutely refuse to listen or do his or her work? I've had success in the past, but I feel like this is a weird time of year, especially with the weather. I want to do more activities, but have found it's a little hard when students just want to sit around and talk to one another, while refusing to do any work.
Honestly, the time out would have been my reaction as well. Normally when the kids were just nuts, we would resort to something along those lines or just give them silent bookwork to do with the threat of taking names if they couldnt complete that as well.
ReplyDeleteI find that unfortunately, middle school students are not capable of being able to do the "fun" and still keep themselves in control...especially the urban kids we deal with...that was a frustrating thing i struggled with as well. but the question i really think you have to look at is how much are you willing to tolerate and are you expecting too much out of the group? (which im sure youre not...i know how ridiculous they can be) but it's something to think about for the future.
I'm finding with the middle schoolers I have now (and it probably would have worked with the high schoolers as well) that often times I need to tell them how I'm feeling. Do you guys ever do that? Tell them that you're feeling disrespected and ask them how anything is supposed to happen if there is disrespect in the classroom? I know that probably wouldn't have worked in the get a drink of water situation, but just something I've realized.
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