Reinforcement for Students
Handling Aggressive StudentsWhen looking at Marzano's discussion of how to handle different behaviors, I was reassured to see that many of the techniques I used in the past were effective. His work is a great reference and well written. I felt it was missing a bit in that it didn't really mention the importance of having the administrative support and backing when trying these techniques. Especially when dealing with repeated non-compliance. A teacher often needs support when dealing with repeat offenders, for the simple reason that other pairs of eyes might see things differently or get a different reaction from the student. In the schools I worked at in the Middle East, there was much more backing for decisive disciplinary action once you presented evidence that couldn't be ignored. My current school is different. The owner of the holding company wants a vision to be implemented and anything counter to that vision is rejected and will perish in oblivion through being ignored, acknowledged and not acted upon, or made so bureaucratic, it effectively can't get done. So if student behavior runs counter to that vision, the default reaction is to: ignore it, belittle its significance, or make it your problem to fix in hopes you will get discouraged and not raise the issue anymore. In addition, you may have administrators who really want to help you, but are required to attend so many meetings or perform tasks of a Superintendent, that they are unable to be present when they could back you up.
One has to get creative in how one approaches student behavior in this environment. I have found that you have to be really good at piling on pressure on students to self-correct by pointing out what a pain in the backside negative behavior is for the student... You have to actively create situations where the lazy way out is to do the task correctly. If you get the class to buy into your role as someone to mentor their transition into adulthood, and that adulthood is not that frightening and within reach, you have a powerful lever to apply against negative behavior.
Before one can do that you need to do your homework. Learn to be an intelligence gatherer about your students. Talk to their teachers before you teach them. Get admissions information, see if parents are active in PTA and observe the parents and compare their behavior to the student. What is the same? What is different? Notice the peer groups, student seating at lunch, the activities the student is in, the reputation among teachers. Who says positive and negative things about a student? Is it the eternally optimistic or pessimistic teachers or the more balanced ones. Ask the counselors about students. Get and external assessment results you can. Pay attention to hallway behavior. In all try and harvest all the information you can about a student. It will suggest topics for conversation, or ones to avoid. Your goal is to show a genuine interest in the student's growth over your interest in the student. Being interested in the person makes it easier to befriend rather than guide. You are a guide and teacher before being a friend.
Once you have the information, you have the space to maneuver, the space to look for leverage points that push the student to positive results.
I will discuss the behavior issues I currently see and what I am able to do at present. It is not the best, and I am frustrated by the situation, but I don't think you ever get it the way you like as a teacher. It is a rare thing when you do.
The behaviors are:
It is not the usual list of behaviors as my current school has a student body free from a lot of the behavior issues seen in other schools. The collective drive to live in harmony is apparent in the students, so you seldom get the hostile rebellion against authority seen in other parts of the world. I will address how I handle rebellious behavior at the end of this post.
How I deal with student behavior in general is summarized in the chart below. It is adjusted for the culture in China where one cannot let students "lose face". Notice that the actual response in class can be quite different depending on the intelligence I have about the student. The chart is a sort of skeleton of what I do in the classroom. The basic premise for dealing with negative behavior is to refer to the shared goal of preparing students for adulthood.
General Flowchart for Behavior
Depending on the results in the diagram, the way I mention becoming an adult will vary. For students in the midst of an argument rivalry, the discussion is about whether the negative behavior is seen in the world of successful adults as well as reminding them of all the conversations they will have with teachers, administrators, friends as well as his/her parents, and the parents of the kid. Wouldn't it be easier to find a more adult way of handling it? Companies will just fire you or sue you if you do it as an adult. You have to find a better way of handling stressful people. Often I will ask the class what the population of the world is or how many copies of a person there are in the world. It is natural to disagree and not like people. No one is worse because of it, you are worse if you let the disagreements hold you back. Is it worth having a suspension on your school record?
Eighth graders want to be treated as adults even when they are not able to pull off being an adult. I constantly remind students that many behaviors or problem solving approaches are not helping their chances at being successful in the future. "You seem to want to have difficult conversations with your parents, the principal, the counselor, the homeroom teacher, with me... I guess you enjoy that a lot?" How will your behavior need to change so you lessen the chance of unpleasant conversations? Alternately I take the line that they must really enjoy all these discussions with parents, teachers, and principals about poor academic performance, so keep up the good work... There is a raised eyebrow or eyeroll from the student with a quick correction that they don't enjoy these aforementioned interactions. So then I can ask why they keep repeating the behavior that leads to the interactions?
For students who do only trivially easy formative tasks, I point out that you don't get far doing what everyone else can already do. Successful people have to try hard things. It may be putting simple things together in a complex way, or it may be organizing large numbers of people doing simple tasks, (I point to the following class decorations in my classroom):
This is made of many, many simple parts combined in a brilliant way. Wanting to do simple things is not bad, not using the simple things to lead to something more complicated is.
For students wanting to constantly resubmit work to get an A, I individually ask how much pressure they have from parents for grades. I will also talk to the homeroom teacher and counselor to get a better picture about the role grades play in the student-parent dynamic. I will then discuss with my peers what the best course of action would be to not adversely affect the relation between parent and child. I may offer to help the student by meeting the parents and talking down the importance of grades for a student in Grade 8, or I may point out to the student that the reflective work done in class may give him talking points to get parents to see the growth over the grade. I will also point out to the class, that this behavior doesn't work too well in the adult world. Pilots don't take off after landing to repeat the landing because they weren't happy with the bounce they made during the landing. Parents do not get to return you if your crying was annoying when you were a baby. At some point, you have to accept things and move on. We also talk about the fairness on those who prepared and did well. If you didn't study and someone else did, you shouldn't be allowed to redo it. Irresponsible behavior is not a reason for deadline extensions. Becoming responsible and struggling is a far better reason for a teacher to give you a chance. If the student insists on redoing things, I ask them to research and show me evidence that says retaking something five times is better than adjusting and fixing the way you study or paying more attention while solving the assessment.
For students who sit and do nothing for four weeks and suddenly decide to hand work in a day before my grades are due, I don't accept it anymore unless I have clear evidence there is a disability, or exceptional circumstance (like visa issues forcing the kid to leave country). They have to organize their time in order to become adults, and sometimes saying no is faster at forcing them to time manage, than indulging them.
For tutors and cram centers, I ask the parents to meet and require them to explain how the activity they put their kid in helps with university admissions and subsequent academic success. Hearing the parents concerns allows one to see if there are misconceptions that can be addressed. Most Chinese parents do not think about the students's success after acceptance to a university, and making the parents aware of the need for critical thinking skills, often leads to a reassessment of the time usage of the kid. Usually, I have to get support from the Chinese Assistant Principal as I do not have the "Guanxi", the connected relation to the parents, that is so valued in China. Put simply, the advice of a close friend is valued and given higher priority than the expert. If I were closer the parents than the friend, then my advice would be given priority. As a foreigner, knowing me socially has little connective value, so parents don't try to contact me. There is no point to branch connections from compared to a Chinese person. The Assistant Principal is a person with a standing and network of relations that can be tapped, so her statements will be listened to. Socially and professionally, she is not someone they can ignore. Calling in reinforcements is easier than trying to ingratiate myself by being the kid's tutor or trying to meet parents socially...
For students who do not hand in work, there is the complication of unacknowledged learning disabilities. China has laws that account for visible physical disabilities, but little that addresses ADHD, dyslexia, or less obvious disabilities. (At least in the English translations of China's education laws that I have seen) (China Education and Research Network, 2005). The laws stipulate that education of students with disabilities is the sole domain of the Chinese government (local education district). Private schools or institutes can provide facilities, but they cannot run the education of the disabled student. For private schools, this is a really awkward situation as it makes it easier for the government to exercise control over the curriculum and invites scrutiny of the school finances. For parents, admitting their genes have an issue is a slur on their ancestors, and they will only acknowledge the disability as a last resort, when no other school will take the kid. Most parents refuse to take any steps to get an unseen disability diagnosed, and the school will not push for it, to reduce the risk of government presence in the school.
As a teacher, that means we have to implicitly address the disability, and that limits the help we can provide and also affects learning of others in the class as no one can talk about why little Flavian takes so long to finish a task, or can never remember where his work is... So the process is flawed and ends up being giving students more time as our school assessment policy is geared to avoiding parental wrath, and allows for students without a disability to take advantage of the lax deadline policy that is meant to accommodate the unacknowledged disabilities. We have a log for recording people who do not submit work so the Foreign Assistant Principal can hunt them down for lunch detention, but he is in so many meetings, the effectiveness is compromised.
Flowchart for handling students not submitting work.
It is a messy thing in this school, but there are no metal detectors, no aggressive kids, and altogether a much more teacher-friendly environment to be in.
The following Voicethread describes how I handle Aggressive students.
How I Handle Aggressive Students
Bibliography and Works Cited
One has to get creative in how one approaches student behavior in this environment. I have found that you have to be really good at piling on pressure on students to self-correct by pointing out what a pain in the backside negative behavior is for the student... You have to actively create situations where the lazy way out is to do the task correctly. If you get the class to buy into your role as someone to mentor their transition into adulthood, and that adulthood is not that frightening and within reach, you have a powerful lever to apply against negative behavior.
Before one can do that you need to do your homework. Learn to be an intelligence gatherer about your students. Talk to their teachers before you teach them. Get admissions information, see if parents are active in PTA and observe the parents and compare their behavior to the student. What is the same? What is different? Notice the peer groups, student seating at lunch, the activities the student is in, the reputation among teachers. Who says positive and negative things about a student? Is it the eternally optimistic or pessimistic teachers or the more balanced ones. Ask the counselors about students. Get and external assessment results you can. Pay attention to hallway behavior. In all try and harvest all the information you can about a student. It will suggest topics for conversation, or ones to avoid. Your goal is to show a genuine interest in the student's growth over your interest in the student. Being interested in the person makes it easier to befriend rather than guide. You are a guide and teacher before being a friend.
Once you have the information, you have the space to maneuver, the space to look for leverage points that push the student to positive results.
I will discuss the behavior issues I currently see and what I am able to do at present. It is not the best, and I am frustrated by the situation, but I don't think you ever get it the way you like as a teacher. It is a rare thing when you do.
The behaviors are:
- Students will not do formative assessment tasks unless they are trivially easy.
- Students feel entitled to redo summative tasks until they get the grade they desire.
- Students hand in summative work only when teachers have to submit grades.
- Students give the work assigned by private tutors and cram centers more priority than your work.
- Students don't hand in work at all.
It is not the usual list of behaviors as my current school has a student body free from a lot of the behavior issues seen in other schools. The collective drive to live in harmony is apparent in the students, so you seldom get the hostile rebellion against authority seen in other parts of the world. I will address how I handle rebellious behavior at the end of this post.
How I deal with student behavior in general is summarized in the chart below. It is adjusted for the culture in China where one cannot let students "lose face". Notice that the actual response in class can be quite different depending on the intelligence I have about the student. The chart is a sort of skeleton of what I do in the classroom. The basic premise for dealing with negative behavior is to refer to the shared goal of preparing students for adulthood.
General Flowchart for Behavior
Depending on the results in the diagram, the way I mention becoming an adult will vary. For students in the midst of an argument rivalry, the discussion is about whether the negative behavior is seen in the world of successful adults as well as reminding them of all the conversations they will have with teachers, administrators, friends as well as his/her parents, and the parents of the kid. Wouldn't it be easier to find a more adult way of handling it? Companies will just fire you or sue you if you do it as an adult. You have to find a better way of handling stressful people. Often I will ask the class what the population of the world is or how many copies of a person there are in the world. It is natural to disagree and not like people. No one is worse because of it, you are worse if you let the disagreements hold you back. Is it worth having a suspension on your school record?
Eighth graders want to be treated as adults even when they are not able to pull off being an adult. I constantly remind students that many behaviors or problem solving approaches are not helping their chances at being successful in the future. "You seem to want to have difficult conversations with your parents, the principal, the counselor, the homeroom teacher, with me... I guess you enjoy that a lot?" How will your behavior need to change so you lessen the chance of unpleasant conversations? Alternately I take the line that they must really enjoy all these discussions with parents, teachers, and principals about poor academic performance, so keep up the good work... There is a raised eyebrow or eyeroll from the student with a quick correction that they don't enjoy these aforementioned interactions. So then I can ask why they keep repeating the behavior that leads to the interactions?
For students who do only trivially easy formative tasks, I point out that you don't get far doing what everyone else can already do. Successful people have to try hard things. It may be putting simple things together in a complex way, or it may be organizing large numbers of people doing simple tasks, (I point to the following class decorations in my classroom):
This is made of many, many simple parts combined in a brilliant way. Wanting to do simple things is not bad, not using the simple things to lead to something more complicated is.
For students wanting to constantly resubmit work to get an A, I individually ask how much pressure they have from parents for grades. I will also talk to the homeroom teacher and counselor to get a better picture about the role grades play in the student-parent dynamic. I will then discuss with my peers what the best course of action would be to not adversely affect the relation between parent and child. I may offer to help the student by meeting the parents and talking down the importance of grades for a student in Grade 8, or I may point out to the student that the reflective work done in class may give him talking points to get parents to see the growth over the grade. I will also point out to the class, that this behavior doesn't work too well in the adult world. Pilots don't take off after landing to repeat the landing because they weren't happy with the bounce they made during the landing. Parents do not get to return you if your crying was annoying when you were a baby. At some point, you have to accept things and move on. We also talk about the fairness on those who prepared and did well. If you didn't study and someone else did, you shouldn't be allowed to redo it. Irresponsible behavior is not a reason for deadline extensions. Becoming responsible and struggling is a far better reason for a teacher to give you a chance. If the student insists on redoing things, I ask them to research and show me evidence that says retaking something five times is better than adjusting and fixing the way you study or paying more attention while solving the assessment.
For students who sit and do nothing for four weeks and suddenly decide to hand work in a day before my grades are due, I don't accept it anymore unless I have clear evidence there is a disability, or exceptional circumstance (like visa issues forcing the kid to leave country). They have to organize their time in order to become adults, and sometimes saying no is faster at forcing them to time manage, than indulging them.
For tutors and cram centers, I ask the parents to meet and require them to explain how the activity they put their kid in helps with university admissions and subsequent academic success. Hearing the parents concerns allows one to see if there are misconceptions that can be addressed. Most Chinese parents do not think about the students's success after acceptance to a university, and making the parents aware of the need for critical thinking skills, often leads to a reassessment of the time usage of the kid. Usually, I have to get support from the Chinese Assistant Principal as I do not have the "Guanxi", the connected relation to the parents, that is so valued in China. Put simply, the advice of a close friend is valued and given higher priority than the expert. If I were closer the parents than the friend, then my advice would be given priority. As a foreigner, knowing me socially has little connective value, so parents don't try to contact me. There is no point to branch connections from compared to a Chinese person. The Assistant Principal is a person with a standing and network of relations that can be tapped, so her statements will be listened to. Socially and professionally, she is not someone they can ignore. Calling in reinforcements is easier than trying to ingratiate myself by being the kid's tutor or trying to meet parents socially...
For students who do not hand in work, there is the complication of unacknowledged learning disabilities. China has laws that account for visible physical disabilities, but little that addresses ADHD, dyslexia, or less obvious disabilities. (At least in the English translations of China's education laws that I have seen) (China Education and Research Network, 2005). The laws stipulate that education of students with disabilities is the sole domain of the Chinese government (local education district). Private schools or institutes can provide facilities, but they cannot run the education of the disabled student. For private schools, this is a really awkward situation as it makes it easier for the government to exercise control over the curriculum and invites scrutiny of the school finances. For parents, admitting their genes have an issue is a slur on their ancestors, and they will only acknowledge the disability as a last resort, when no other school will take the kid. Most parents refuse to take any steps to get an unseen disability diagnosed, and the school will not push for it, to reduce the risk of government presence in the school.
As a teacher, that means we have to implicitly address the disability, and that limits the help we can provide and also affects learning of others in the class as no one can talk about why little Flavian takes so long to finish a task, or can never remember where his work is... So the process is flawed and ends up being giving students more time as our school assessment policy is geared to avoiding parental wrath, and allows for students without a disability to take advantage of the lax deadline policy that is meant to accommodate the unacknowledged disabilities. We have a log for recording people who do not submit work so the Foreign Assistant Principal can hunt them down for lunch detention, but he is in so many meetings, the effectiveness is compromised.
Flowchart for handling students not submitting work.
It is a messy thing in this school, but there are no metal detectors, no aggressive kids, and altogether a much more teacher-friendly environment to be in.
The following Voicethread describes how I handle Aggressive students.
How I Handle Aggressive Students
Bibliography and Works Cited
China Education and Research Network. (2005, January
5th). Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China.
Retrieved October 4, 2017, from China Education and Research Network:
http://www.edu.cn/20050114/3126820.shtml
China Education and Research Network. (2005, January
27). Home>English>Education in China>Policies & Laws>.
Retrieved October 4, 2017, from China Education and Research Network:
http://www.edu.cn/20050127/3127991.shtml
Marzano, R. J. (2007). What will I do to recognize
and acknowledge adherence and lack of adherence to classroom rules and
procedures? In R. J. Marzano, The Art and Science of Teaching: A
Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction (pp. 131-148).
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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