"Making Lessons Sizzle"

I usually post short essays, but today I am going to depart from the usual and post nothing but a solitary link to Elizabeth Stein's article in Teacher Magazine. I invite you to see how many of her seven tips you can incorporate into your teaching this next week.

4 Difficult Students and How to Handle Them

Have you ever noticed that it seems the harder you push back against difficult students, the more resolute they become? As strange as it may seem, resisting difficult students strengthens their behavior. Any first year teacher knows that no amount of scolding, detentions, whatever, work. It is like these students get on a destructive path and their egos become committed to seeing it through, sometimes to the point of expulsion from school. Even then, they will say the teacher or the principal had it in for them.

They complain to family and friends that their teacher does not like them. It may even be true. I had teachers who did not like me. It did not stop me from getting a begrudging A in their class anyway. Now we all know we cannot change anybody. We can only change ourselves. We know this, but somehow it does not stop us from trying anyway.

A strange thing about human behavior is that the more we try to change a person, the more set in their ways the difficult person becomes. So give it up. Someone said the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same things that never work.

At the same time, teachers cannot allow anarchy in their classrooms. Here is one approach to the dilemma. “Fighting” difficult students only makes them more difficult, so turn their behavior to a productive purpose.

1. The one who argues and loudly
After butting heads with Jeremy, a seventh grader, a few times, I realized he was simply argumentative. One day as he was warming up to another major class disruption, I took him out into the hall.

“What's up with all this argument?” I asked him.
“I not arguing,” he answered. “I'm an independent thinker. I have my own opinions about things.” (With that I knew he had come out of some of that phony critical-thinking curriculum that's out there, mixed in with some of that phony self-esteem stuff). I started with his own words.

“Okay, the whole point of education is to teach people to think, so I am really happy you value thinking and want to learn how to think. Of course, people need to develop opinions, but people also need to be able to logically defend their opinions.”

“That's what I'm doing, he rejoined. “I'm defending my opinion.”

“Well, actually what you are doing is just repeating your opinion, only more loudly. With every repeat, you get louder and louder until you are shouting.”

Jeremy nodded.

“So here's the deal. The way you defend you opinion is by showing with facts and logic why your opinion is justified. For example, if I have a silly opinion like smoking cigarettes is good for health, just because I can say that louder than you can does not make the opinion right. Being an independent thinker does not mean being able to shout everyone down.”

Jeremy nodded again.

I went on. “Next time you feel your opinion is being challenged, find one additional fact or piece of logic and share that in a voice lower than mine. That will also help your classmates learn to defend their opinions. Can we do that?”

Jeremy agreed. “We'll have a secret symbol. When you are starting to get loud, I”ll put my finger to my lips. Then you will know you are falling into your old habit, okay.”

It worked,but not instantly, and not without a little backsliding at first.

2. The one who throws your words at you.

This is the student who prefaces an objection with an accusatory “but you said...” or “you didn't say...”
Double challenge: when his buddies back him up. Sometimes the student is honestly misremembering. Sometimes the student is hoping that since teachers talk so much, day in and day out, you will not possibly remember what you said. (Interestingly, this amazing audio memory of students does not seem to help them with tests). Sometimes you really did forget what you said.

Getting into an argument about what you said or did not say is pointless. You need to know what you said. Most the of the time, the student is objecting to your enforcement of a class policy or points lost for not meeting one or more criteria of an assignment. You had already prepared by not only clearly presenting the class policies and assignments out loud, but also every student possesses the policies and assignments in writing. Calmly point out the relevant chapter and verse.

If the student is still being difficult, and especially in the company of friends, you may want to separate him from his support group before you talk to him. Or you may realize that the students are expressing a sense of powerlessness. Then discuss the objective of the policy or assignment, get agreement with the objective, and SINCERELY ask the students how they would like to go about reaching the objective. Finally, sincerely consider their views, and possibly modify the policy or assignment.

3. The one who complains all the time.

Make these students your eyes and ears in the classroom. Students observe all the time that stuff goes on right under the noses of teachers and the teachers do not do anything about it. I once had a pair of students extorting money from their classmates everyday for weeks right under my nose. I knew something was going on. I once observed one student passing money to another. The body language was off and I asked what was going on. The victim said he had borrowed money the previous week and was paying it back. Students do not understand that teachers may have suspicions, but usually they have to catch the perpetrators before they can do anything. The students almost always know about the problem for a long time.

The foregoing was just an example. Some students complain about all kinds of things, some trivial, some serious. Very often, their complaints have a measure of validity and it is very distressing to be blown off as “disgruntled.” We all have heard bosses dismiss a worker's complaint with an airy “You can't pay any attention to her. She's just a disgruntled employee.” So enlist the complainers as your confidential insiders and have them report to you directly. Take what they say seriously.

4. The one who resists authority
This student does not want to be ordered around. Truth be told, none of us wants to be ordered around. We all resent it. We especially resent orders whose only apparent reason is “because I said so.” If education is partly about passing on a democratic society and democratic values, taking an authoritarian stance creates dissonance, and sometimes even hostility. An authoritarian approach, especially if perceived as arbitrary, disrespects the students. Some of these students stereotypically see all teachers as representatives of offensive arbitrary fiats.

See point number 2. Give them autonomy. Surveys have shown that autonomy is a number one predictor of job satisfaction. When the boss says, “Here's what needs to be done. You figure out how to do it and report back to me,” employees are happy and motivated. Students enjoy the respect autonomy bestows. If you are talking, for example, about an assignment, tell them, “Here are the requirements of the assignment because here is what the assignment intends to accomplish. You are welcome to accomplish the requirements of the assignment your own way as long as you meet the following conditions...”

Sometimes, making the effort to avoid catching them doing wrong pay great dividends. In one secondary school, 85% of the students smoked. Teachers had lunch duty for the express purpose of preventing the students from smoking. Some of the teachers took great delight in catching the kids smoking.

Now, I hate cigarettes. I grew up with heavy smokers and to this day I have persistent respiratory problem I attribute to all the second-hand smoke. When I had lunch duty, I would walk around singing. Needless to say, I did not catch very many kids smoking. Students repaid the favor with their in-class behavior.

Finally, look for opportunities to catch your students doing right, and compliment them PRIVATELY. Do not imperil their street cred or expose them to accusation of being “teacher's pet.”

The New School Year: My Top Ten To-do

Number 10. Go through your closet and get your own school clothes ready to go. Update or accessorize your outfits. I know I did not like wasting time trying to figure out what to wear, or discovering at the last moment I had forgotten to dryclean or mend something.

Number 9. Get to know those important unsung heroes, the backbone, of the school. The janitor, school secretary, librarian, the cafeteria ladies, the recess monitors, the school nurse.

Number 8. Figure out your rules and consequences for violation. Have a behavior management system in place. Make sure your rules and consequences are compatible with school policies and the general practices of other teachers. Talk to other teachers early to shut down efforts by students to play teachers off each other before it has a chance to begin.

Number 7. Rehearse routines with students every day until following the routines is automatic. Think about: how do I want students to enter the room and record their tardies? Do I want a student monitor to help me with roll, leading the pledge of allegiance, lunch money collection, other? What is the procedure for turning in homework? How should they set up their desks for start of class. When are pencils to be sharpened? Bathroom procedures? Papers for absent students? What kind of behavior do I expect when there is a substitute? Make sure EVERYTHING is spelled out so that they know exactly what to expect.

“Design some method to manage and keep track of daily paperwork -- especially for absent students. If you have all of your students regularly asking you for their work, you’ll lose your mind. There are so many options out there. My favorite is to have a hanging folder for each student in every class. If I pass out papers, the student at the front of the row is responsible for filing the handouts for every absent student in the appropriate folder. When the student returns they know they can look in their folder for all their work.”

Number 6. Communicate with parents before school starts.

“You can start communication with parents before the first day of school. Teachers can call home to welcome students and talk to the parents before school starts. I like to send postcards to new students introducing myself. Other teachers hold special class events such as class picnics in the park or an ice cream social before the first day. An opening letter from you on the first day of school is a wonderful way to introduce yourself to the families you will work with. Along with the letter, I also send home a family survey. The data gathered provides insight and invaluable information about my students and families right from the start. Here are some things I include in my family survey:

• What languages are spoken at home?
• Is there someone to help your child with homework?
• Emergency phone numbers, emails, updated address
• Food allergies/Health issues/Diet
• Celebrations and Cultural Awareness
• Child’s Strengths
• Special Needs
• Interests and Talents (parents love this)
• Areas of Concerns, if any
• Expectations for the year
• Questions”

I also plan for open house. I like the custom of Japanese teachers who visit the homes of every student. Take a little gift with you, maybe something the students can use in your class. Oriental Trading has tons of ideas. I like these crayon-shaped erasers.

Number 5. Write a week's worth of lesson plans for the substitute teacher BEFORE you are so sick you cannot even lift your head. I like to base my substitute teacher plans on that last “optional” chapter of the textbook, the one no one ever gets to. As a hands-on science teacher, I preferred to interrupt my regular lessons over burdening a substitute with overseeing an experiment.

Number 4. Plan your first day of class. Start out with an engaging activity that also provides students with a chance to learn and practice something to help them be successful during the year. I had my students to a simple experiment on the first day as a vehicle for teaching them lab rules and procedures in an interesting way.

Number 3. Find another teacher, whether in your grade level or field or not, to partner with, peer mentor each other, and integrate materials. You may want to integrate with more than one teacher at your grade level and with teachers in other grades.

Examples of multi-grade integration suitable for k-8 schools:
Have students create some sort of science teaching aid, like paper models of body systems, and use their teaching aid to teach younger students in another grade. Or invite a younger class to be lab partners with middle school students for a class period.

Examples of within-grade integration suitable for a middle or high school:
Coordinate spelling words with the English teacher. In my case, a word like “hypothesis” might be an extra credit word. Or combine assignments, so that a lab report written in my class get graded for data analysis and conclusions, but the same report gets graded in English class for English mechanics. Or coordinate with the math teacher to teach the metric system in math class at the same time the science teacher is teaching the metric system for gathering quantitative data.

Number 2. Get your supplemental materials together for the first unit, and make a list of the supplemental materials for subsequent units. Put a note on your calendar about a week or so before the end of a unit to remind yourself to gather the listed materials together for the next unit.

Number 1. Know your material, Read over your curriculum several times. Write out a scope and sequence for the entire year. Invariably you will make adjustments as the year progresses, but you will be able to prevent becoming bogged down if you keep an eye on the destination.

Finally, do something nice for yourself.