When a difficult student has a good day it’s normal to want to reward them for it. You’ve just witnessed behavior you’ve been hoping and praying for all year, and you want to seize the moment. You want to make it special and memorable. … Read more
So you have this student who seems determined to ruin your school year. He (or she) is blatantly disrespectful. He makes fun of and laughs at other students. He’s rude and silly. He’s argumentative and attention-seeking. He is well known by every staff member … Read more
Many difficult students behave the way they do because they’ve experienced—and often continue to experience—emotional turmoil associated with a deplorable home life. Verbal and physical abuse, poverty, neglect, drug and alcohol use in the home, and other sources of emotional pain and trauma can … Read more
No, it’s not attention. For the most part difficult students are given far too much attention. Learning how to spend less time on difficult students will do both you and them an ocean of good. In fact, it’s among the critical first steps to … Read more
The student stands wordlessly, eyes averted, still smarting from yet another backslide as the earnest teacher softens the blows of the student’s many transgressions. Listing positive attributes, offering reassurances, buoying spirits, the teacher seeks the slightest spark of understanding, the slightest recognition indicating that … Read more
Effective classroom management requires you to hold difficult students accountable beyond just the four walls of your classroom. Washing your hands of misbehavior that “technically” doesn’t happen on your watch—at recess or with the art teacher, for example—sends the message that you don’t really … Read more
It’s not uncommon for teachers to give their most challenging students classroom jobs and other mild responsibilities. The reasoning is that it keeps them busy, feeling useful, and preoccupied with something other than misbehaving. There is nothing wrong with this strategy, and it can … Read more
There are students who have learned from an early age that if they misbehave enough, if they disrupt, interfere, and otherwise make life miserable for everyone around them, then they can get the adults in their life to give in and give them what … Read more