Mointoring a Student
How do you handle a situation when a student continues to disrupt the class even though you are using efective mointoring techniques?
In my early years of teaching, I would almost always react - not respond - to a disruptive student by trying to subdue him or her in front of the class in a rather scolding way. I would even try to out-attitude those I perceived who had a 'tude! This usually led to a deeply strained classroom atmosphere, and loss of time, focus and energy covering the subject at hand. Suddenly, one day out of the blue I simply engaged the disrupter: during a break, I started a reasonable conversation just to get to know them a bit. That tiny dose of attention from the teacher seemed to be what they really needed. In the intervening decade or so, I've never had this sort of "Hey, are you alright?" fail.
I have done this and it almost always works as long as I am empathetic to the disruptive student.
LeTisha,
this is always a challenge. I would suggest pulling the student aside & speaking to him/her about the disruptions & see if there is a reason behind it. From there, it will be a matter of how the students responds.
Dr. Ryan Meers
