How To Handle An Out-Of-Control Student

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 and can describe the inside of the
principal’s office.

Time-out has minimal effect and notes and phone calls home rarely do any
good.

It’s clear that there is little accountability at home and school administration is
reluctant to suspend him for classroom behavior.

Short of physically hurting another student, he is untouchable. And he knows

it.

He is one of those rare students who has gotten a peek behind the curtain and
has discovered that no matter what he does, within fifteen minutes or so he’ll
be right back out on the playground or in your classroom doing as he wishes.

It’s disheartening and stressful, and you’re at the end of your rope. You’ve tried
everything. You’ve done your research. You’ve read all the books. You’ve
requested help and consultation from counselors and psychologists. You’ve
hashed and rehashed it out with your colleagues.

But to no avail.

And so here you are, deep into the school year, and other than a few brief and
blissful periods of improved behavior, nothing has changed. In fact, if anything,
it has gotten worse. He has now begun misbehaving right in front of you,
literally daring you to do something about it.

All the while you’ve been a saint. You’ve worked hard to build rapport. You’ve
been patient and kind and forgiving. Your students love being in your class. It’s
just this one student. Why isn’t he coming around? Why isn’t he buying into
your program?
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You must make the accountability so strong, in fact—and the alternative so

attractive—that it’s guaranteed to work. You see, as you widen the extremes
between accountability on one side and what you’re offering as a member of
your classroom on the other, there will be a point when he’ll think, “I’d much
rather be a part of that (the classroom).” And it is at that point that his
behavior will change, and change drastically.

After speaking to his parent(s) and the principal to let them know of your plan,
you pull the student aside and inform him that he is no longer a regular
member of the class. You tell him, in so many words, that because of his
behavior, you can’t ensure the education and enjoyment of the rest of the class,
and thus he can no longer be a part of it.

You explain that his desk will be set apart until he can prove to you he can
behave like a full-fledged, contributing member of the classroom. This is no
permanent time-out, mind you, for there is a way back into the classroom and
its good graces that is entirely up to him.

Practically, he will no longer be allowed to participate in learning games,

group/fun activities, partner work, and non-essential verbal exchanges. He is
still required to do all work and participate as an observer, but he may
not actively participate. (If some of the suggestions above are such that you
feel can’t be taken away, for whatever reason, then you take away what you
can.)

Remember, though, the stronger the accountability, the quicker he’ll be back in
your classroom behaving like everyone else. As for recess, if similarly you can’t
make certain the safety and enjoyment of every student on the playground,
then he shouldn’t be out there.

The best way to handle recess is to sit with him and watch. Like being in the
classroom, he needs to see what he is missing. If you’re at a school that
discourages taking away recess, then give him the option of running or walking
laps—again, while you watch.

Yes, it’s a bit of extra work. But it’s a small price to pay for a peaceful classroom.
In fact, even while in the midst of the strategy, your teaching life will become
easier, your students will be happier, and you’ll accomplish so much more.

I recommend waiting at least a couple of days before entertaining any thoughts

of returning him to full membership status. And even then, only if he has
proven through his behavior he can do it and has requested an opportunity to
try.
It’s important to note that you shouldn’t attempt this strategy if you’re not
otherwise faithfully following a classroom management plan and successfully
managing the rest of your students. Further, the strategy is only effective if the
student feels he is missing something, thus the critical importance of creating a
learning experience your students like and want to be a part of.

To be clear, this strategy is meant only for an unusually difficult regular

education student in an otherwise well-behaved classroom.

To be an effective teacher, you must never let any one or more students
interfere with the rights of the rest to learn and enjoy school. It’s when
educators of all stripes lose track of this core classroom management principle
that there is a breakdown in learning, behavior, and all things right and true.
 How To Turn Around Difficult Students

So you send a student to time-out and almost immediately they start goofing
around. They wriggle in their seat. They giggle and make a racket. They stir up
their classmates and distract them from their work.

Here you enforce a consequence in order to maintain control of your classroom,

and things have only gotten worse. It’s a stressful situation that can make you
feel as if you have no recourse. It can make you feel like you’re at the mercy of
this one student.

But the truth is, until and unless you address the reason why a student would
play around in time-out, there is precious little you can do about it
beyond shushing, threatening, and crossing your fingers

At the start of every school year you drag your finger down your roster, hopeful
you won’t see one of the few names that can send shivers down your spine.

Every year, it seems, there are a handful of students that have the potential to
make your life miserable.

Having one of these beauties on your roster can mean the difference between
leaping out of bed in the morning and shrinking pitifully back under the
covers.

For most teachers, a year with a difficult student will proceed predictably.

The student will disrupt your class, interfere with learning, and cause you to
spend an inordinate amount of time trying to curb his or her behavior.

You’ll manage to keep the damage to a minimum and get the child through the
school year.
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My thoughts about this issue is that,Most so-called difficult students need nothing
more than a teacher with a solid classroom management plan and a thorough
understanding of how to implement and enforce it. Take a hard look at how you’re
managing your classroom before trying anything else.

Compassion is a good thing. Teachers were born with it in abundance. It breaks their
hearts to see what some of their students have to go through at such a young age.

But this same compassion that in many respects makes you a good teacher can cause
you to make excuses for students, which, in the long run, hurt them and undermine
your ability to turn them around.

I know you want what’s best for your students. I know you love kids. I know you want
to make a difference.

But do you care enough to stop making excuses for bad behavior? Do you care enough
to make the hard decisions? Do you care enough to put your personal feelings aside
and do what is right for your students?

Are you ready to say, “It’s over. The buck stops here. The disrespect, the bad behavior,
and the excuses are going to stop with me?”

Your students need to know from beginning to end what will happen if they
misbehave, which then must be as sure as the stars in the sky. No surprises. No
uncertainties. Just your promised response. This alone will eliminate nearly all
time-out misbehavior.

When you model and specify in a highly detailed way the steps a misbehaving student
will go through, including every eventuality from initial warning to letter home, and
you prove yourself true to your word, then disruptions of any kind tend disappear
from your classroom.
You should always be prepared, however, to follow through, to calmly do what you
said you would do, to be a steady beacon of truth in a sea of compromising integrity.

Time-out isn’t just a time-out and your rules aren’t just rules. The way you teach,
implement, and enforce them matters—tremendously. It’s everything. It’s the
difference between hoping your students will behave . And knowing they’ll behave

When you first teach your classroom management plan it’s important to model
this exact scenario. Nine times out of ten, students play around in time-out
because you haven’t clearly defined what will happen if they don’t sit quietly.

A good teacher is the one who knows his/her students, how would they be motivated to learn,
how would they react with him/her inside the classroom. Everything a teacher does in the class
help him/her in classroom management, how well the teacher is prepared, how he/she is
managing his/her time, how much the activities are appropriate for the students’ level, how
much the objectives are clear for the students, and how much the students are ready and
motivated to learn. All these conditions are effective for managing the classroom.

Teacher can also use his/her voice tune as a tool to get the learner’s attention, not only this, but
also switching the light off in a sudden may also help the teacher to get the students’ attention.

Students are smart enough to know when to be noisy and when to disturb the teacher, but the
teacher has to be smarter to know how to get the students involved in the lesson. And I do agree
that once the student is motivated to learn and knows why he is there, he won’t misbehave and
a calm quiet environment for teaching and learning will exist.
How To Avoid Labeling Difficult Students

Difficult students feel different from their classmates.

As if, they don’t quite fit in.

They don’t have the same capabilities.

They don’t have the same level of self-control or interest in school.

And yet, the most common advice given to teachers to help these students only
makes matters worse.

It only makes them feel more ostracized and less confident in their abilities.

It only reinforces the image they have of themselves as “difficult” and

“behavior problem.”

Truth is, they’ve been labeled.

They were labeled at an early age and continue to be labeled year after year,
which is why they never seem to change.

Unless, that is, you put a stop to it.

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It’s common for teachers to pull difficult students aside to cajole, pep-talk, and
otherwise try to convince them to behave. But the deeper and far stronger message they
get from you is that they’re not like all the rest, who you don’t pull aside. Keeping them
close to you and away from other students via your seating chart or your near-constant
proximity is irrefutable proof that you believe they’re incapable of controlling
themselves, which they readily accept as fact. Frequent checking in, praising for every
minor—and temporary—improvement, and talking them through every this and that
makes it obvious to them, as well as the rest of the class, that they need your personal
attention. Nothing tells a student they’re different and less able than a behavior contract.
And although the rewards may improve behavior short-term, they virtually eliminate
intrinsic motivation and do nothing to actually change behavior. When you
have negative thoughts about students, agonizing and complaining about them to your
colleagues, they’ll know it. It’s something you can’t hide. It will bubble to the surface
in the way you look at them, speak to them, and privately resent them. These efforts to
improve behavior, which many difficult students have been subject to for years and
years, merely strengthen the limiting beliefs they have about themselves.

They communicate loud and clear that they’re not good enough, that they can’t do it,
which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that’s very hard to overcome.

To see real and lasting improvement, you need to change the story they tell about
themselves.

You need to put a stop to the madness, to show them through your behavior and actions
that they’re capable of so much more and so much better, that the truth is they’ve been
sold a bill of goods.
While it may be difficult to conclude from this specific study that teacher expectations
alone have profound effects on students in regards to their academic potential and
involvement in negative health risk behavior, labeling in the classroom setting is not
simply a phenomenon: it is an important reality that should continue to be addressed
and researched by future studies. As stated before, what makes labeling in the
classroom so problematic is that like other types of stereotyping, it is an unconscious
process and thus done automatically. After all, the goal of the educational system
within this country is to provide every student with equal access Labeling in the
Classroom, 31 and equal opportunity to a quality education, and thus many
individuals who become teachers do so because they want to enact these goals within
their own classrooms, with their own students. Yet these good intentions are quickly
undermined when these teachers begin to treat their students differently based on their
academic achievement, and because they believe so strongly in creating an
environment free of discrimination and favoritism, it becomes difficult for them to
acknowledge the discrepancy between their cognitions and their actions. Thus similar
to unintentional, covert racism, unintentional labeling is probably the most dangerous
kind of labeling, because it is practiced by well intentioned individuals who do not see
themselves as being biased, which makes eliminating it extremely difficult (Mio,
Barker, Tumambing, 2009). The more awareness that is brought to teachers’ attention
about how detrimental this unintentional action can be for their students, the better
prepared teachers will be in recognizing this differential treatment they enact with
their students, preventing poor students from internalizing this label and allowing it to
dictate their potential as both a student, and as an individual.