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Lesson Plans


Re: Disruptive MS students - kids who "do no harm" in parent's eyes

From: Jarsawyer
Date: Sat Jan 22 2000 - 10:29:03 PST

  • Next message: Aaron and Jennifer: "Re: Poor fine motor skills--how to assess fairly?"

    I don't know if this helps, because these kinds of students are so hard to
    work with, but I often try, with limited success, to design a project with
    that child in mind. I try to make that child a positive center of attention
    for whatever short amount of time I can pull it off in my classroom. So I
    find out what s/he is interested in and work around that. I sometimes rely
    on outside interests to reach that child also. For instance, I once had a
    child who was always getting suspended and always in trouble with the
    administration and I found out he was interested in hockey. I helped him get
    into our local hockey program (I'm a hockey/figure skating mom) and found him
    equipment for no cost and I bought him a stick. (His was a extraordinary
    circumstance -- I can't possibly do that for all my tough students.) Then I
    had his attention -- he knew that I "knew" him. We did contruction kinds of
    projects -- he couldn't handle paint -- but I showed him that I trusted him
    by letting him work with exacto knives and other wood cutting tools and we
    made ships in a bottle. (Of course, I was next to him the whole time during
    the project and I counted tools as I passed them out and counted them back in
    as kids lined up.) Even though he was an extreme management problem for the
    school, he was smart and creative and he was the first to understand the
    process and complete the project.

    It seems like anything you do with these kids, however, is successful for the
    short term -- they need so much positive attention. But mayble someday he'll
    remember his old art teacher and realize that I really saw something in him
    that no one else saw.

    Julie 

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