Tuesday, November 02, 2010

I am frustrated today.... very.... There are 2 young men who are causing me such grief I am out of options with them it seems.

#1 - sleeps through class every hour, every day. Today, in prealgebra, I made him stand. I figured at least he was awake. But the next hour, in science, I could not even get him to wake up enough to stand.

#2 refuses to do anything but torture his sister. He even went so far as to throw her books in the hall garbage can today.

*sigh* I feel like a failure with these two young men. I have exhausted every thing I can think of, and then some.... and nothing changes their behavior.

These are the kinds of kids I wish I had a magic wand for, some carrot I could dangle to get them to at least be occasionally cooperative. But alas, no...

*sigh*
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3 comments:

TJ Shay said...

I would be curious to know the root of both problems. Kids don't typically act like that unless there is an underlying core issue. Find that, and you can start to resolve and work through.

You are NOT a failure because you have tried to find a solution (failure would be just giving up). . . You just haven't found the way to resolve it. You can only fail if you just give up (and I know you won't).

Good luck!

11:53 AM
Kristin W said...

I honestly have the same problems. There are those couple of students (usually in each of my classes) that pose daily problems. Insubordinace, complete lack of effort, sleeping, and acting out to "look cool."

I don't know what else to do. I've tried all techniques I can think of, I've contacted parents, I've written them up...nothing changes. It doesn't make me feel like a failure...but it makes me want to give up.

I'm glad someone can relate.

12:25 PM
TJ Shay said...

Just another chime in to Kristin W (whom I don't know). . . PLEASE don't give up! I have been doing this for 25 years now and I KNOW without a doubt that some kids WANT you to give up. They KNOW how to handle that situation, because they are very used to it. People have more than likely always given up on them, which gives the kid the message that they aren't worth working on/with.

I know as well as anyone that this is tough work. But, the payoff SOMETIMES when you are the one who helped them turn a corner is enough to keep you going through the bad bad bad times.

I do think some kids are 'too far gone' for me to help. . . but I swear I am not going to give up trying. At the end of the day, no matter what happens, I will know I gave it everything I have.

Thanks for all you do on behalf of the kids who don't know how good they have it to have people who care!

2:31 PM

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