In my final trip to my field experience, the students were working on centers again. The Mrs. Brown was working at the science station, while other kids were working on the computers, looking up their vocabulary words in the dictionary, and finally students were making cards for a students who was in an accident. The class today was more hyper than on other days that I have been there. Many of the students could not stop talking and Mrs. Brown told me to just sit and not help them for the first hour that I was there. Due to their unproductive behavior, there was a lot of yelling happening.
One student was called out for something and he began to cry. Mrs. Brown threatened to send this student across the hall to another teacher, but this only made the student cry more. For the next two hours, the student did not stop crying. Others would tell him to stop, or they would glare at him from different places in the room, but he continued to cry. This child has anger problems (although he is not diagnosed with EBD, the teacher says he could be), therefore while he was sitting for this time, his body was extremely tense, his hands were in fists, and he was breathing heavily. I was nervous that he was going to start hurting himself, or another student. Eventually a student went up to Mrs. Brown and said that she could not concentrate due to the crying behind her. This statement made Mrs. Brown frustrated. She stood up from the center she was at and yelled at the class that they are so loud that she could barely hear herself think, therefore they can deal with one student who was upset.
When it was time for lunch, Mrs. Brown went up to the crying student and whispered that she was not mad at him for being upset, she was only upset that he was causing other students to become distracted. She told him that when they got back from lunch, he would be allowed to take some time for himself and calm himself down.
When the kids returned from lunch, this student was still crying. He decided to accept the offer of not doing the work right now, and therefore he just sat at the desk and cried. Eventually he got a warning that said that he needed to start his work or else it will become homework. This provoked the student to cry even more. Mrs. Brown was finally finished with the crying and said that he belonged with the kindergarteners because thats how he was behaving. She ended up walking over to the student and giving him a dictionary in order for him to start working.
If I were the teacher in this classroom, I would have handled this situation differently. I know that students behave a certain way for a reason; either their needs aren't being met or they want something from you whether it is attention, control, or revenge. I think that this student was trying to get the attention of the classmates and the teacher. Therefore, I would have pulled the student aside in the beginning of the crying and would have tried to figure out what was wrong. By doing this, I would be able to change some things in my days lesson in order to make the student feel more comfortable and happy in the classroom. I also would not have threatened to send him to the kindergarten classrooms. This is something that could happen if the student understood the teachers humor, but this is not one of those situations. I would have told the student that he is not behaving appropriately and that he should go to the bathroom and take a break before coming back into the room to complete the work. By giving the student the power of not doing work, it teaches them that if you cry enough you don't have to do anything. This is not the message I want to send my students. I would rather my students come up to me when they are upset and try to explain why, than have them cry for the entire day and not understand where my student is coming from with this sadness.
No comments:
Post a Comment