I was focused on this one boy from the beginning. When I came in to the class my host teacher told me that he was a newer student and caused many problems. He liked being liked so he would do things just to get the attention from the other students. He would say things just to get the reaction. One day the students were working on words ending with "er" and how if they ended with it the word would change from a verb to a person, seek to seeker. The teacher was asking the class for examples. His example was killer and my mouth just dropped.
He lags behind in his work, almost always being one of the last to turn it in. I can tell he knows how to do it, he just goofs off and procrastinates so much he doesn't get it done.
One day last week I had had enough. I chose to try proximity control. I sat right beside him the whole time. I didn't have to say anything to him during the class. He sat there, did his work, and was done fairly quick and got an A on the assignment. The next day I was there he did not interrupt once and did his work and turned it in.
I believe he is a smart student and that shows in his work when he take the time to do it instead of trying to impress people. He should be more focused on work and not on the students. The question is how can I help him do this?
First of all don't over react to words like "killer". It's an expression many people use including myself in the place of "cool". Even if he was attention seeking through "let's see if I can win the respect of my peers by shocking the adults in the room" the winning strategy for you is to ignore that behavior.
ReplyDeleteA good strategy here is to implement a community building activity. I'm not expecting you to, this is not your classroom, but in your future classroom when a new student is put in your class you should facilitate some fun "getting to know you" activities.
Great observation!