Is this fair from her?

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I have one special student at high school where I teach. She is 16, wears black and dreadlocks and shirts with things like FU and similar ideas.
ALthough most teachers don't respect her, from the very beginning I showed my respect to her. I mean I showed it is her business what philosophy or group of people she follows. My business is to teach English to her. So for a long time we got along well. The only problem is that it is her nature to do things "differently" so at times instead of doing an excercise she draws funny pictures in the text book or listens to a discman. I always tell my students it is your business, your life if you work or not, but I MUST evaluate your job in my class. So if you don't participate, if you don't try to learn, then it will be reflected in the grade I will give you at the end of the term. So this girl is trying most of the time, but at times does whatever she things is more fun than English. So I would grade her overall effort as B or C, her performance in tests as B. But that is not the problem. She is the most disturbing student in terms of talking when she is supposed to be quiet, mostly when I need to say something to the class. She tends to ignore me at times and this is puzzling more than annoying.

The question is / is it fair from her to treat me like I don't exist when I respect her, respect her life style?
So I asked her today after the lesson and asked her something and maybe it was a stupid question. There is this totally respected conservative teacher and students tell me he has all discipline and is very impersonal, ok, so I am more informal and personal with my students. So let's call him MR T, so I asked the anarchist student, do you disrespect MR T the way you tend to disrespect me? And she says, well, MR T is totally different and of course, I don't treat him like you.

Do you think this is fair? maybe I expect too much integrity from an unstable teenager?

So the question that is puzzling me is if she realizes that this is like shooting in her own foot? She disrespects a teacher who really likes her and tries to help her and encourage her and respects one who doesn't care about her or who even thinks she is stupid or lazy.

I asked Mr T about his opinion of the girl and he really doesn't care about her. To him, she is a lazy brat, that is all. The more hurt I feel.

THe last comment / yes, I am personal with my students because it is my style and it helps me interact with them in lessons. I know some teachers are totally cold to the students and it works for them. It doesn't for me and as you see, my style has disadvantages and the impersonal style has disadvantages. THe question is not which style is better, the question here is what is on her mind... I don't get it, thanks.

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ryunin, it helps us to know if you are a man or a woman. I would guess a woman. It seems that your rather unorthodox student doesn't feel good about teachers who try to help her. Perhaps it has to do with her rebellion.

I would continue to be concerned, but be objective in your evaluation.

I am amazed that the administration allows her to wear shirts with that crude expression emblazoned on it.

It would also help us to know more about the school system in which you teach.

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I say, it's nice to show respect to your students, but that doesn't mean you have to let them run all over you. She's not showing you respect because you are allowing her to disrespect you.

What do you do when she is disruptive? Do you explain to her that it is disrespectful to you and to the other kids?

You should decide on some minimal rules for your classroom that reflect respect. Like, no talking while the teacher is talking, no discman during class, etc... And then you have to come up with some way to enforce it. If you are disruptive, say, you get one warning, after that you have to leave the class. Unfortunately, good grades aren't always a motivation for all students.

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Im not sure that disrespect from a teenager has anything to do with the person who is receiving it , as much as it has to do with the teenager themselves.

it is a way for them to show some power when they have none. I wouldnt think it was "personal" even though it feels that way.

It is a fight against the authority figure , and not the person.
Obviously she respectes you as a PERSON , because she is honest with you, but she disrespects you as an authority figure because she goes against the rules.

I would be willing to bet, in Mr T's class... she shows disrespect there as well.. just not in the same ways because he doesnt allow it.

but.. im just guessing..

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I think that you need to gain some professional distance. There is a middle ground between being totally cold, and becoming too personal with students.

Quote:

The question is / is it fair from her to treat me like I don't exist when I respect her, respect her life style?

Of course it isn't "fair". But she is your student not your peer. As far as her life style is concerned, it really should be none of your concern. You should be completely neutral as far as her lifestyle is concerned.

I am curious. How old are you, and how much experience have you had as a teacher?

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I'm with Phoenix here--"fair" is not the issue.

Quote:

Is it fair from her to treat me....

Who is going to decide "fair"? Your Principal? Your minister? A2K members?

If we say, "Unfair" does she get spanked? Sent to her room? Humiliated in front of the student body?

You are an adult, a teacher. She is a particularly exasperating student who needs maturing in many ways. "Is it fair?" doesn't deal with her problems--it just puts you down on her childish level.

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Thank you all for your ideas.

Firstly, I am a man, 39 year old, have been teaching at all kinds of schools on and off for about 15 years.

I have never been the kind of teacher who is great by nature. All the good things I do as a teacher are things I have learned from experienced teachers. For example before TEFL, I was awful in psychology. Now even if I am not natural in this aspect, at least I am aware of mistakes when I make one.

Another thing is - I hate routine and like to experiment. Although I always employ methods and things that have proved functional, when I encounter a new problem, like this student, I sometimes do something that I know is not probably the best solution, but as I cannot ask all the time, I have to do it using intuition.

Another thing. The school environtment I am talking about is a quite a privileged school in Prague, the Czech Repuglic. Very tolerant atmoshphere that I can't change, but it is true, some individual teachers require the traditional respect. The problem is I am not going to be a totally different kind of person just because ONE student is an anarchist. My way works with 90 percent of them.

For example, the students there often skip class because they study music as their first or major subject. They are not required to have specific notebooks for specific subjects. To get a C in English has absolutely no impact on their future career so basically whoever tries to learn English in my class ususally does so to have personal advantage that knowledge of English leads to.

Her clothes are tolerated / I think it is a kind of confusing atmosphere or values in our country as a reaction to the totally prohibiting atmosphere of communism where students were not even allowed to wear jeans, in some schools. During communism the armosphere was really dark and totalitarian now it is too free. I am not so liberal as I look. But I just try to somehow logicallly be part of that partical school style and values.

Please refer to more details about the discipline issues I come across in my recent post Discipline takes 5 minutes.

I really appreciate your input and it helps me in the real situation as a teacher.

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Also one of the reasons I am asking, OK, it doesn't matter so much if she likes me or not, of course, that would be childish, but as I personally care about her life, as I know how fragile it is at her age, she reminds me of my own sister who was very similar at her age and rebelled and took drugs, even heroin a couple of times and now my sister is quite responsible and positive and I Know that any kind of positive attitude to such a person helps and may even very very crucially change the course of her life, for example when it comes to drugs. So I am afraid if I turn cold to her and start to treat her like an object and punish her in the usual way like reporting to head master, writing comments about her behavior in official papers and documents, I will lose all the rest of the respect that I still have with her. On the other hand, of course, I am the boss there and I have to decide.

I think one of the most difficult things about teaching is to show that you are t he boss and still maintain mutual, positive working atmosphere. With a person like her it is very very delicate.

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I don't think it has to be one or the other extreme. I think you can remain friendly and open towards her in a general way, while having some boundaries that you enforce. I very much agree with FreeDuck's suggestion to figure out what you can and can't tolerate, and then be consistent in enforcing whatever rules you do come up with.

Teenagers are often testing boundaries, seeing how much they can get away with, and someone who is friendly but firm is more likely to be respected (in general) than a total pushover.

I do know what you mean about the difficulty of finding that balance. Good luck!

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Aha! Now I understand. I can certainly appreciate what you are attempting to do. Often an empathic teacher makes a big difference in a youngster's life. Be careful though, that your personal experience with your sister does not get mixed up in your dealings with this student.

I also sense an ambivalence as to the culture of the schoolroom right now. It sounds like you are not completely accepting of the more permissive attitude that has emerged in your country. I think that you need to come to terms with your culture as it is now.

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You asked in your first post what is in her mind...

Think of yourself as a parent. You ar being tolerant of her clothing, attitude, disrespect, much like a permissive parent that allows their child to get by with all sorts of things.

A child (She is a child by your accounting of her immaturity) WANTS limits. They want to know they are safe and that adults care about them and that is relayed to the child by setting limits, having rules they have to follow, etc.

Mr. T has those rules. She respects them. She may think no more of him as a teacher than she does you as a teacher, but he gets better treatment because in reality he is demanding more from her which in turn makes her feel safe.

A parent with control has better children. Same with teachers. That doesn't mean you have to change your overall style, because it wouldn't be sincere. You could start with little things like "No Discmans in class." If you see it, you take it for the remainder of the class or until school is out for the day. Announce it as a rule for the class, not just her. Also, let her know you will not allow her to interrupt or talk during class when you are teaching. Rather than punishment for doing so, tell her that for every X amount of days she doesn't talk disruptively while you are teaching, she can have 5 minutes at the end of class to say what she wants to say... In English. (Or some similar reward that also goes along with the subject matter such as being allowed to read some of her poetry to the class) It depends on what would be be a reward for HER.

If her grades are around a B, she obviously understands and is learning from you. Maybe she is bored and needs to be challenged more. Maybe you could offer her an opportunity to do more in a way that perks her interest.

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Based on what you guys say, the paradox is that she actually wants me to stop respecting her like an equal being. By telling me that she respects a teacher who doesn't respect her as much as I respect her she makes me put her into a "naughty child" category. What annoys me is that 99 percent of my 16 year old students behave like adults and I can deal with them like with adults, while she can't handle this. Although she is intelligent enough, she doesn't realize that she wants me to treat her like a child.

Maybe I will tell her that I took her like an adult until now and I realised it was a mistake and from now on I have to treat her like a child. Then she may realize how stupid her attitude is. This is really my weak spot in teaching , dealing with something like this. If she was my individual student and paid for the lessons, there would be no problems and we would have fun I am sure. But in the classroom environment she is destructive and I hate that she doesn't want to admit it. I just can't understand the mixture of her intelligence that she definitely has and this stupid attitude.

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She's NOT an equal in this situation. Ultimately, you have more authority than her. It is somewhat dishonest to pretend otherwise, and that might be part of what she is reacting to. (I've been through this same thing, I do know what you mean; I found that owning the fact that yes, I'm the authority figure whether than letting it make me uncomfortable helped a lot.)

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(rather than...)

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This is the way I work:
My students know right from the get go that it is MY class, not theirs. They will receive the same level of respect from me that they give to me. But they will not receive the same TYPE of respect. They know and understand that I am their teacher. I am not there to coddle them, I am not to hear their gossips(although I do keep my ears open when they talk before class starts). I am there for them if the have problems whether they are personal or academic.
I have a very strong belief that if you allow one student to misbehave, the rest of the students will lose respect for you.
My way of running a classroom is mine. It is based of my personality and they way I expect students to behave.
A teacher I observed when I was in college said to me "start each year and each class off with lots of discipline. You can always ease off. But if you start light you can never get control."
As for your student wearing her discman....you might as well hang it up. She won and ther's nothing you can do.

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Ralpheb, I know what you mean.

But you say - wearing her discman, she won and there is nothing you can do.
I don't know WHAT she won. I was going to give her a B in January on her report card but recent behaviour that she displays, her lack of cooperation will make me give her C, and that makes a difference. So I don't know what she won.

Another thing, yes, she sometimes acts silly, but the time she spends disturbing my teaching is like 20 seconds within 45 minutes, so it is almost nothing. Almost every student in my class does what I tell them to do for 45 minutes, my class is definitly not a mess and the students tell me they are happy I teach them and that I am their first English teacher from whom they are learning something and that the previous teachers were awful. So maybe they respect me as a teacher but don't respect me so much as a lion tamer. When they see a particular student acts without respect toward me, they notice it is an individual problem of the particular student, they know very well the acting is silly - so they don't follow her example - and they notice I don't lose control. But you are right, with some kind of military approach there would be nothing to discuss here now on my part.

When I was teaching at a different school about 7 years ago, there were two groups of students in my class. One group studied with me and paid attention and the rest were reading magazines, listening to walkmans etc. THe first group got A, at most B at the end of the term, the non participating group had C or D, based on the amount of knowledge they did know despite their lack of participation. Everyone was happy and there were no discipline issues. At this school where I am teaching now, I came across an odd kind of students, who try to participate, get good grades, but don't do it consistently. That's what I don't understand. I have never before come across anything like this. Maybe they are waiting for January 31 when they get their final term grades from me.

Allowing or not allowing students to use discmans or read magazines in class is an issue itself. Even the most respected, most conservative teachers have never ever made me pay attention to their class if I was not interested in the subject. I was daydreaming through math, chemistry and physics all time during my high school years. Listening to discman is not different from my daydreaming, is it? A teacher is there to offer education, not to force it.

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And yet another outcome - after some more analysis of the whole situation, I guess I am turning the negative into positive now.

Yesterday I was disappointed after talking to the rebel student because I really personally like her and what she said sounded like I made professional mistakes in the past and that she suggested that I couldn't handle her.

Hey, now I am going to write her a thank you letter. Actually, her critical comment made me really / as you can witness here at this post/ start to analyze the whole situation. And she inspired me to introduce a brand new evaluation system into my lessons.

I would encourage all teachers who feel like they are losing respect or control - instead of giving up, think about the negative things and criticism and try to find a solution. Life is dynamic and even the most succesful companies make mistakes and then learn from them.

In the first school term (September through January), I was observing the behavior and habits of my students. It was a completely new school, new environment and I came there as a professional and skilled teacher to ADULTS. Or teenagers with adult behavior. I didn't come there as a professional educator of handicapped teenagers or a mob psychology expert. So first I had to observe what was going on and only now I can come to some conclusions and solution. So I am introducing a new evaluation system that will be based on EFFORT rather than performance.

I absolutely disagree with the idea that a teenage student beat me. No, she encouraged me to introduce a much more demanding evaluation and grade system. The mature and hard working students will benefit, she will have much harder time to achieve a good grade, so she actually made her life more difficult now and mine easier. I know whenever I set clear rules to my 11 year old students, the discipline immediately switched from relaxed to almost perfect. So you never lose. You can always win as a teacher. But the point is not to beat the students. The point is to establish working, professional atmosphere in the class and manage even the most difficult students. Like that you can concentrate on teaching and the students can concentrate on learning without having to deal with discipline issues.

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Is this fair from her?

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