A major part of teaching is dealing with behavioral issues. It is a fact of the matter and regardless of grade level, it is apart of the job. For me personally, it is one of the most challenging parts of the job. It is also something that only comes with practice. Each school has a different policy and each teacher has a different style when it comes to handling behavior. Coming into my classroom, I have an older cooperating teacher so the respect is almost automatic between the students and him. This being said, when I began my takeover, the automatic respect is not there, which resulted in more behavior issues.
In middle school, most of my behavior issues are off task students during class because they are too busy socializing or misuse of the chromebook in class. My school district is fortunate enough to provide every student with a chrome book of their own. Because of this, the students are constantly on them either playing games when they should be working or chatting with someone when they should not be. I am working towards gaining the respect of the students so this is minimized; however, it is still a challenge starting from this point.
We have a couple of students who have been trouble kids since the start of the year. They are awesome at math, yet feel the need to disrupt the learning of others. With this in mind, I am jumping into a role of maintaining the current behavior interventions set up by both my cooperating teachers and the other teachers on my team, as well as developing my own style of handling behavior that I see. This has been a challenge for me. I have previous experience in younger grade levels where much more minor steps can be made to make a huge difference in the behavior of that child. In seventh grade, I am having to learn what is a meaningful consequence that not only eliminates the poor behavioral choice but also encourages participation in positive behavioral choices.
Handling behavior is always going to be an area of difficulty for me as I begin but with practice, I will be able to speed through the challenges and handle the behavior quickly and efficiently. As for now, this is something that I will continue practicing and participating in. My recommendation is to get as much practice as humanly possible through every placement so you have a tool box of methods to pull from when working with behaviorally challenged students.
Miss C