The Unloveable Child
You know who s/he is, teachers. The kid who disrupts your every lesson. She talks back, contradicts you, meanders around the class, won't participate appropriately, distracts her classmates, is seemingly unable to sit in a chair for more than three minutes, is outrageously disrespectful, the poster child for the advocacy of free birth-control, the child you can't stand, the bane of your existence, the one who makes you question your decision to become a teacher. She makes your blood pressure skyrocket and upsets your stomach the night before you even see her in class. She is the ultimate prickly person.
All your strategies for dealing with her have failed - contracts, punishments, staying in for recess, phone calls home, rewards, begging and pleading, private talks in the hallway, outright coreection (yeah, you've even yelled (admit it) in class.
I know why she does this, this unloveable child, and so do you. She wants/needs your attention. The child who gives you no reason to want to help her needs your help the most.
Talking with a fellow teacher about children like this, I was at my wit's end. WTH? Why do I have to put up with this? Why is she so unresponsive to all my efforts to teach her, help her, connect with her? Why should I even bother anymore? Why can't I jsut send her to the office and be done with her?
The school year's almost over anyway - does it even matter?
Actually, the school year is not over. Because as the music teacher, I will teach this child next year and the year after that. I need to get this resolved because she and I will be going round and round, bashing heads together for the next two years unless I can man-up (teacher-up?) and find some why to deal with her.
My colleague shared this story with me: At a school she taught at before the one she was at now, she was given the twelve lowest children in the grade level she was teaching. Her directive - get these kids reading, no matter what. You most likely guessed that not only did these children have the biggest learning difficulties, their behavior was just as crappy as their learning skills.
She said after banging her head against a wall for the first half of the school year, she finally realized this: in order to survive the rest of the year and make some progress, she had to find something to love about each of the children she was teaching because this was one of the things these children lacked. When she was able to do this, she told each child what she had found to love about each one of them. Things never became perfect and she still struggled, but she was able to take some of the vinegar out of her dealings with these children.
Well, I'm not one for woo-woo or touchy-feely, but I've been giving this a lot of thought. Was it easy to find something likeable about her students? Definitely not she said, but she had to find something. "Until then", she said, "I was going home with headaches, looking ten years older than I was." She was at the point where she was ready to try anything to get through to the children".
Ack! I don't have time to do this!" I whined, "I don't want to like them, I just want them to shut the hell up and stop interrupting my lessons." "It's your decision", she said, "I'm just telling you what worked for me. Has anything else you've tried this year been working?"
Shit.
How do I love an 'unloveable" child? How am I possibly going to find something positive in a person I find absolutely despicable? I googled "How to love an unloveable child" and got a bunch of Jesus-Christian-God-Loves-You websites which is not what I'm looking for. How can I find something to like about the children who piss me off the most?
So this is where I am now. I am willing to give it a try, but where do I start? I have contacted the mentors of these children. Hopefully i can get some ideas from them. If you want, I can let you know what happened.
All your strategies for dealing with her have failed - contracts, punishments, staying in for recess, phone calls home, rewards, begging and pleading, private talks in the hallway, outright coreection (yeah, you've even yelled (admit it) in class.
I know why she does this, this unloveable child, and so do you. She wants/needs your attention. The child who gives you no reason to want to help her needs your help the most.
Talking with a fellow teacher about children like this, I was at my wit's end. WTH? Why do I have to put up with this? Why is she so unresponsive to all my efforts to teach her, help her, connect with her? Why should I even bother anymore? Why can't I jsut send her to the office and be done with her?
The school year's almost over anyway - does it even matter?
Actually, the school year is not over. Because as the music teacher, I will teach this child next year and the year after that. I need to get this resolved because she and I will be going round and round, bashing heads together for the next two years unless I can man-up (teacher-up?) and find some why to deal with her.
My colleague shared this story with me: At a school she taught at before the one she was at now, she was given the twelve lowest children in the grade level she was teaching. Her directive - get these kids reading, no matter what. You most likely guessed that not only did these children have the biggest learning difficulties, their behavior was just as crappy as their learning skills.
She said after banging her head against a wall for the first half of the school year, she finally realized this: in order to survive the rest of the year and make some progress, she had to find something to love about each of the children she was teaching because this was one of the things these children lacked. When she was able to do this, she told each child what she had found to love about each one of them. Things never became perfect and she still struggled, but she was able to take some of the vinegar out of her dealings with these children.
Well, I'm not one for woo-woo or touchy-feely, but I've been giving this a lot of thought. Was it easy to find something likeable about her students? Definitely not she said, but she had to find something. "Until then", she said, "I was going home with headaches, looking ten years older than I was." She was at the point where she was ready to try anything to get through to the children".
Ack! I don't have time to do this!" I whined, "I don't want to like them, I just want them to shut the hell up and stop interrupting my lessons." "It's your decision", she said, "I'm just telling you what worked for me. Has anything else you've tried this year been working?"
Shit.
How do I love an 'unloveable" child? How am I possibly going to find something positive in a person I find absolutely despicable? I googled "How to love an unloveable child" and got a bunch of Jesus-Christian-God-Loves-You websites which is not what I'm looking for. How can I find something to like about the children who piss me off the most?
So this is where I am now. I am willing to give it a try, but where do I start? I have contacted the mentors of these children. Hopefully i can get some ideas from them. If you want, I can let you know what happened.