Even the best, most-seasoned educators sometime struggle with the classroom management skills to handle difficult students – those kids that lack discipline, are rowdy and disruptive and can derail even the most thought-out of lesson plans.
One classroom management technique that has been proven positive to deal with difficult students is that of compassionate discipline, a form of classroom management that urges teachers to deal with student misbehavior in a sympathetic way.
Frequent TeacHHUB.com (and TeachHUB Magazine) contributing writer Janelle Cox points out the methodology inherent in compassionate discipline in today’s centerpiece article. Janelle is a seasoned elementary school educator based in Upstate New York, so you know her practices are well-tested.
Janelle’s ideas for how to deal with difficult students include:
- Create a Structured Environment
- Offer a Choice
- Be Kind and Compassionate
- And More!
Janelle sums up her article thusly: “Struggling teachers handling difficult students sometimes hold to the belief that all students, regardless if they are good or badly behaved, should automatically show them respect because they are an authority figure. While this may hold true in some aspects, respect goes both ways and it earned over a period of time. Defiance and disrespect is usually just another test from the student and overtime it can be overcome.”
Do you have any tips on how to handle difficult students who act out in the classroom? What types of situations have occurred in your classroom and how did you handle it? Please share your thoughts, we would love to hear what you have to say.
The Cycle of Education Reform
Education reform is one that is sometimes cynically synopsized as “Adopt, Attack, Abandon. Indeed, it can be easy to characterize the cycle of education reform as adoption of policy, ensuing confusion, and an eventual dumping of said reform policy.
But why is this? Is it true, and can educators do anything about uit?
Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jordan Catapano, who moonlights as an English teacher in the suburbs of Chicago, deconstructs the topic of education reform, including:
• Where Education Reform Originates
• Why Reforms Break Down or Change
• What Teachers Can Do
Jordan summarizes his article like this: “The cycle of reform will inevitably continue. As much as we might hope for universal consensus, perfect logistics, and personal meaning, we’ll never achieve those things. Answers that elude others might seem obvious to us, and new reforms might seem ideal to some while ludicrous to us. Whatever stage in the cycle we’re at, we have to remember that there are students in our classroom waiting to see what we’ll do for them. So regardless of what is or is not taking shape in the larger education picture, let’s at least roll up our sleeves and do what we can to ensure that those students entrusted to us are given the best of what we have to offer every day.”
What do you think about cyclical reform in education? What can we do as teachers in light of it?
