New Day
With the world being the way it is, is it smart to talk with an angry student on your own at all?
Hi Taiya,
Listening is key when a student is angry. Sometimes students simply just need to vent!
Patricia Scales
I think it largely depends on where the anger is coming from. Does it have something to do with you directly? You may want to have someone there as an impartial observer if you are concerned about your objectivity or any kind of personal attack from the student. (I don't mean physical, that's a whole other can of worms)
If the student is angry because of something going on outside of school, you could probably listen and diffuse the issue- at least enough to enable them to remain in class without being a disruption.
MOst of the times I had an angry student, it was a temporary situation that brought them to that behavior and once they talked out the issue, the behavior changed. I'm fortunate enough to not had kids with real problems that stayed in school. We've had drug addicts or trouble-makers that washed out from bad grades but without incident. When kids have acted out at our school, it was always emotional issues that they had difficulty dealing with, but once we sat them down and talked it out, they all came around.
