While reading this article I found myself frequently nodding my head in recognition of my own students displaying many of these types of behaviors including my own case study student.
I am in an inclusion classroom with many students who have particular learning struggles and behavior problems. One of the biggest behavior problems in the class is simply “disruptive behavior” that disrupts the ongoing learning process in the classroom. Students in my classroom are so capable yet there is an almost constant disruption in the learning environment that keeps many of the students from making even greater strides in learning. Based on this article I think I need to make even greater strides in preventing reinforcement of disruptive behavior in the classroom.
As for my case study student, I think this article pinpointed his biggest struggle with behavior and that is noncompliance. My case study strongly dislikes to write. When asked to write something down, he usually immediately shuts down and crosses his arms and gives the teacher a mean glance. As the adult, I can’t make him do anything, but I desire to understand what causes such a distaste of writing. In the past week or so I have developed an independent contract for my case study student during reading and word study time. We have also talked briefly as to why writing is so frustrating for him. A small celebration has been that he wrote the longest reading response letter to me this week without being asked multiple times! I hope to further uncover ways to help him succeed and break this fear of writing and noncompliance!
I mentioned your class in my blog post because I saw a lot of similarities between the students in the article and the students in your class as well. I haven’t taught your class (I’m about to… oh boy) but I still know somethings about your class and about the difficulties that you’re facing. I can’t even imagine.
As far as trying to understand why your student won’t write – that’s interesting! I would want to understand that too, is it something as simple as not having the ability to write down simple words and being insecure and self conscious about that or is there something deeper there?? I think I know who you’re talking about and I think there might be some deeper issues there… but I don’t know.
And I understand your frustration about not being able to make a student do something. When they say they’re not going to do anything and they’re determined to not do anything, you can’t make them do something. The hardest thing that I face with one of the students in my class is that one of the students just doesn’t care, and I can’t MAKE her care… I can send her down to the office and have the principal or someone down there get her to do her work but at the end of the day… she just doesn’t care about it and I’m having a difficult time with that – so I can only imagine the difficulties that you’re facing in your classroom and I’m sorry!!! But like I said in my post… at least you’re gaining the experience!!
By: Anna Toone on March 14, 2010
at 4:12 pm