Students Ruin My Good Lesson Plans

What Can I Do?

Educators want to do the right thing by their students, but sometimes they need another perspective on a problem.

What would you say to this first-year teacher?

Shawn runs around my middle school classroom like it's a track. Janyce shouts "I hate you and I hate this class." How can I handle them and teach the other kids in my history class? This is my first year of teaching (after a successful year of practice teaching where I was praised for helping improve the student test scores) and I work hard at planning lessons that are engaging and interactive. Yet, I can't make progress with these students disrupting class.

What can I do?

Your advice

R. Walker (8/30/07) said:
My guess is that your kids know you're a rookie and they're testing you. Both behaviors are disruptive and must be dealt with immediately. Here's what I recommend:

1. Remove a student from the classroom as soon as he or she becomes disruptive. Be consistent if the behavior continues. Try to have a quiet conversation with the student, away from others, and see if you can find out what's really going on. If you do get some information, see if you can act on it. If not, let the student know that the outbursts will not be tolerated and that there will be consequences in the future per school policy.
   
   
2. Communicate with the parents. Since it's so early in the year, you probably don’t know yet if there is parental support for either of these kids, but parents can demand changes from their kids, as they have tools to reinforce their demands (loss of privileges like cell phones, iPods, etc.). 
   
   
3. If you can't get parental support, talk with administrators. Running around the classroom can be dangerous and can put you and the school at legal risk.
   
   
4. Assign lunch detentions. These hurt because kids value their time with their friends.  

R. Fernandez (8/15/07) says:
Your students may just be looking for attention. There are various ways that students try to get attention. We need to communicate with the ones who might unconsciously be in need of affection or approval. 

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