What do you do when your students are out of control? We've all had those days when the students simply won't settle down and they're just too wound up to pay attention. Things can quickly spiral out of control unless something is done--fast. So what can we poor teachers do?
Please share one or more strategies that you have employed this year that have worked for you.
I am not sure what DOES work, but I can tell you what does NOT work for me. Allowing the situation to become a personal battle of power with the student is definitely asking for disaster. Shouting at the student publicly or throwing him/her out of class is not very productive either. What SOMETIMES works is asking the disruptive student to take a walk for a few minutes and come back when he/she has unwound. Another idea is to ask students to write a reflection on their behaviour and ask them to define specific strategies for improvement. I know this might sound lame, but it does work sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThe ever popular "quiz time" always works. It's unfortunate how this method is one of the few ways they respond.
ReplyDeleteThey love doing grammar work too.
I try to have some information/handout in the news they might be interested in as a backup. Sometimes they'll settle down then.
When it's just a couple of students who are acting up, I move their seats or take points off their participation grade after giving them a warning.
ReplyDeleteIf it's a sizable portion of the class, that presents other problems. IC is unlike any school at which I have ever taught. Even in the American public schools, you typically just get a couple of students who are misbehaving, and individually, students are relatively easy to deal with. But when a good portion of the whole class is riotous, what can you do? Call in the National Guard?
I have employed various strategies while at IC--most of them last year, my Hell year--but am not totally satisfied with any of them:
1) My most common solution, and the only one I have used this year, is to take participation points off the entire class, even those students who were not out of control. I generally give two or even three warnings before I reach this point. I don't like to use this type of mass punishment because it's not fair, but the truth is, IT WORKS and I usually get an almost immediate improvement. Some people refuse to use this type of strategy as it blurs the lines between behavior and academics--but most of those people haven't taught in the Middle East.
2) Last year I gave one of my classes who would not calm down an impromptu quiz after warning them several times, but this just forced me to come up with a hard quiz off the top of my head and the grading of those quizzes added to my already excessive work load. As most of the students ended up failing the quiz, it ended up creating even more animosity between the class and me.
ReplyDelete3) One time in the fall of 2007 I left the classroom to go get the Dean of Students or Mr. Korfali or Mr. Saad to come into the classroom and use their authority to end the students' reign of terror. The Dean of Students yelled at them for several minutes in a very impressive fashion and got them to calm down. However, what this communicated to the students and the admin was that I couldn't control my own students--which was true of course, but not something I wanted advertised, especially to those who write my letter of recommendation.
4) Finally, my deepest, darkest secret: One time, also in the fall of 2007, I even walked out of the class in complete and utter frustration. While I walked out, the students started clapping. CLAPPING! This was my low point at IC and I vowed that I would never walk out of a class again afterward (and I haven't since). I felt like a total failure--and I was, at least in terms of my classroom management. Of course, this was better than doing or saying something that I would regret personally or professionally.
So, what else is there to do? I know that some teachers just sit at their desks and let the students get it out of their systems so they don't have to try shouting over the noisy din. Of course, you could lose an entire lesson or a good chunk of it by doing this. I haven't tried this, but it does sound better than walking out of the classroom.
Any other ideas?
You are all my hero. I usually just go home and use fermented wheat and barley to forget the trauma of the day.
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