Teaching Tips & Tricks | Feb 16, 2013
Should the toughest kids be assigned to the best teachers?
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Should the toughest kids be assigned to the best teachers?
By Angela Watson
You know exactly which kids I’m talking about here–their faces appeared in your mind’s eye as soon as you read the blog post title. These are the kids who are violent and relentlessly disruptive in class, the ones who have a reputation throughout the school as being incredibly difficult to handle.
Each spring, the teacher’s lounge is filled with speculation over who will get each of those kids the following year…and in many schools, it’s a highly predictable pattern. The teachers with the best classroom management skills get the toughest kids. And every year, those teachers say, “I don’t know if I can take another class like this one. I need a break. I can’t keep doing this year after year.”
Sometimes the principals listen and spread out the toughest kids among multiple classrooms in a grade level, but many times, they don’t, and the teachers who used to be amazing become mediocre because they have nothing left to give. They stop researching new activities in the evenings because all they have the energy to do at night is sleep. They show up at school early to plan meaningful learning experiences, and then get so disgusted with breaking up student fights all morning long that they put on a movie in the afternoon and call it a day. They don’t have the energy for the hands-on activities they used to do, so they pass out worksheets.
I’m not saying that response is right. What I’m saying is that it’s happening, in thousands of classrooms all across the country. Our best teachers are burning out from bearing too much of the burden. I understand the need to place students with the best possible teacher for them. The problem is that teachers with strong classroom management skills often feel like they are being punished by getting the most challenging students year after year after year. It doesn’t matter that it’s not intended as a punishment. It feels that way when your job is knowingly made 100 times harder than the job of your colleagues simply because “you can handle it.”
What happens when you can’t handle it anymore? And what happens when the grouping of students interferes with the entire class’ education? I can think of two years in particular during my teaching career when I considered it a miracle that the rest of the class learned anything because my attention was so focused on the third of the class who had constant meltdowns. It absolutely broke my heart to see some of my sweet, hard working kids get less attention and assistance because I had to spend every spare second heading off their peers’ violent outbursts. No child should go to school each day in fear of being harmed by other kids in the class, or be unable to get the individualized learning they need because the teacher is constantly attending to severe behavior problems.
I don’t know of any clear cut solutions. I’m wary of principals burdening brand new teachers with students they know will be challenging–the teacher attrition rate is already astronomical. Some of these kids are so challenging that a new teacher would probably leave the profession before the year is out.
I also don’t want to see high needs students suffer under the leadership of a teacher who is unable to handle them. Maybe schools need to provide more professional development to teachers so they are equipped to handle a wide range of student needs and behavioral issues. It’s rare that a district acknowledges how much classroom management issues interfere with student learning: PD in most schools is centered around improving test scores and implementing curriculum. I did work in one district that allowed principals to identify teachers who struggle classroom management skills and provided extra training through CHAMPS, which is an excellent program, but the change in those teachers’ classrooms was negligible. Without ongoing, individualized support, the results are not going to be transformative. And some kids are just so disruptive that all the PD in the world is not going to prevent the average teacher from being exhausted by 9 a.m. on a daily basis.
Is the solution to get rid of teachers who aren’t able to handle their students? How would we identify those teachers in a fair way? Many of them are not “bad” teachers and are perfectly capable of educating the majority of the student population, they just aren’t prepared to manage the type of kids who throw desks when they’re frustrated and threaten to stab any adult who dares to correct them. Let’s be real: some of these students have no business being thrown into a general education classroom with little to no support. I don’t think it’s fair to blame the teacher for not being able to handle such extreme behaviors in addition to, you know, actually teaching the other 29 kids in the class.
So maybe this brings us to the heart of the issue: schools need to figure out how to meet these tough kids’ needs, instead of tossing them in the classroom with teachers who are expected to manage on their own. These students deserve small class sizes, psychological counseling, ongoing social skills/coping strategies support through small group sessions with the school guidance counselor, and so on. Some of these students even need individual one-on-one behavioral aides. But these resources take money, and schools just don’t have it.
Where does that leave us? If all outside factors–teacher training, special services, class sizes, and so on–stay exactly the same, what should principals do? Should all the toughest kids go to the teachers with the best classroom management skills? How does this work in your school?
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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I teach kindergarten and am experiencing this frustration because we take parent requests at my school. I don’t have a problem with that, but one of my collegues goes out and “recruits” to make sure she gets the “cream of the crop”. She also has our pre-k teacher to tell the parents of bright students from good families to request her. This has gone on for about 4 years, so now the general conception in our small community is that she is the best K teacher because all of her students go on to the high group in 1st grade. I never have and never will ask anyone to request me, so I end up with the poor little pitiful kids. I have 19 students this year, and all are fee waived. The “high class” has 20, and only 4 are fee waived. I love all of mine dearly and wish I could take most of them home with me instead of where I send them to at the end of each day, but I am so frustrated I am in tears most days by lunch. There just isn’t enough of me or time in the day to meet their needs. I have 4 that are capable of learning the K curriculum with regular classroom instruction. The rest need one-on-one, and I just can’t get it in during the day. I have gone to administration crying and begging for help, but it falls on deaf ears. This is my 18th year of teaching. My 1st job I taught 4 grades a day for 6 and a half years at the smallest school in our state, so it isn’t that I’m not capable or just inexperienced. I’m at my wits end and so burned out that I’m going to request a transfer or move to a different school system.
I know that I received a student that was a behavior challenge in kinder, while his other classmates went to the other first grade teacher. He is still a challenge, but his mother and I have worked really hard to get him focused and working. I’m fortunate that his mother is involved.
I have been fortunate that I haven’t had super difficult students, but I know that the difficult ones are sent to me. Students who are mainstreamed into the class and haven’t been identified for special education (RSP and the like) are the ones that make it really difficult for the rest of the students. I’ve seen many of my colleagues deal with this challenge and I don’t know how they do it. There are students who crawl under the tables and chairs all day, who hit other students, who hurt the teacher physically, who have issues with bodily functions, and who are just not behaving appropriately. These are students that should be in a different environment.
We have a behavior management program that works for most students, but not for those listed above because it is beyond them. We write referrals when a student does not follow our expectations and send them to the counselor. The counselor then counsels and contacts the parents. Ultimately, the parent needs to be more responsible for their child’s behavior and acknowledge that their child is not behaving in an acceptable manner. Teachers get so much blame for student behavior yet we need to accept that they are not OUR children in the end. We are here to teach them academics and offer ways to behave in society, but again, we are being told to take over the duties of parents.
Is it fair to get rid of teachers who aren’t able to handle their students? It’s fair if they’ve been given training and the principal has been there to help and they are still having difficulties. Otherwise, no! That’s not fair. It is the administration’s job to make sure that it’s employees have all they need to do their job. If the students and teachers are facing dangerous situations because of this child, it is the administration’s responsibility to get that child out of there. Why does the majority of the students have to suffer because of one child? Teachers NEED the administration’s help and support when facing parents as well. There are parents who do not want to acknowledge that their child needs help.
If schools don’t have the money or resources, then unions, parents, and teachers need to demand them. Wouldn’t we rather use the resources at the beginning of a child’s life than later, for prison expenses? Because that is where these students will end up if we don’t take care of it at the beginning.
I always find it frustrating that the same teachers get the “difficult” ones year in and year out too. If a teacher is known to not be able to handle “difficult” students I like your idea of training them so they can. Spread the wealth and give some a break!
This is so spot on. I have been teaching Kindergarten for 7 years. Every year I had the children that they didn’t know what to do with. They didn’t start in Special Ed because the parents hadn’t had them in programs or anything. The first year, the child was just disruptive. Wondered around the room while I taught, or would go to the kids and start to take their crayons. She was sweet, and I did the best I could with her with no help from administration or sped until she was finally through child study and put into sped in MARCH! From then on the admin would give me any kids coming who they knew the older siblings were issues, unidentified sped, or ones that were “off” at registration. I had all sorts of things going on in my room and was still trying to teach the other kids. They actually at one point took 3 sped kids off my homeroom roll, but nobody ever came to aide them or help me. I kept getting new kids because of my “low number”. I am a very organized person and managed to still do my job. I would walk down the hall and see the sped line and by the time I had taught K for 5 years, half the kids in the line started with me. Then came the YEAR. I got a child they knew was out of control. He actually head-butted me in the stomach so hard I had to go to the doctor. I finally had him manageable and then administration moved a violent child into my class in February because his teacher was having to go to therapy from dealing with him. He threw desks and me and the children. The threw scissors at me. He threw dirt, rocks, his shoes at me. He ran at me and pounded my body with his fists. He threw a pot of hot coffee he grabbed in the office at me. He scratched teachers arms, punched the AP in the face and ripped her hair out. He was never suspended. Meanwhile the child that was already in my room retroverted to his old behaviors. So I was getting assaulted weekly and the police were coming for the other child who was trying to run off school grounds. Finally the new student ended up tearing my rotator cuff and laberum in my shoulder. I had to have surgery to repair it. Did I ever tell admin I didn’t want him? Yes. DId they care? No. They kept saying that I was so good and had such great management skills that I could handle it. I can’t handle it anymore. I changed me. It robbed me of an entire summer with my own children. There has to be a way to hold the children who behave this way responsible or give them the resources they need and keep the kids and adults around them safe. The parents have to be held responsible when their children hurt people, but they aren’t.
One of my co-workers just got a child like this. He’s been at our school three days and admin has had to come and get him several times because he’s been out of control and violent. The second day, admin called his mother who simply came and insisted on taking him home instead of sitting with him in class.
Most teachers I know aren’t aware of the fact that, when a student hits/kicks/punches/pulls hair/bites/scratches/attacks them, the teacher can call the police and press charges for battery. As educators, few of us would ever consider doing so because we feel that it’s not in the best interest of the child. HOWEVER, if no one else is going to address the needs of these violent, uncontrollable students, then perhaps WE need to stand up and take action. It’s our responsibility to consider the best needs of our other students and ourselves. In cases like this, the needs of the one SHOULD NOT outweigh the needs of the many. If we don’t do something about it, who will?
Now, I’m not talking about the average difficult child here, but rather those who are violent and a danger to others. Children who are out of control in the early years (preK-3rd) are not going to magically improve. They are simply going to become more out of control and more dangerous to those around them as they become bigger and stronger, UNLESS they receive the services they need to deal with their anti-social behavior and aggression. For this reason, I think that pressing charges IS in their best interest. It forces parents, the school district and the judicial system to do SOMETHING to help the child before (s)he does something unthinkable and irreparable (mass shootings come to mind).
This is so me this year. I’m flattered you think my management skills are top-notch, but instead of giving them all to me, why not get the other teachers where you need them to be? There is practically NO administrative support for the behaviors these kids exhibit on a daily basis and honestly, this year, I’m done. I have a one-year old and I’m still working out the life-work balance. It was nothing for me to get to school by 6:45 and work until 6 or 7 in the evening, but that’s just not possible now, and I don’t have the energy for these kids day after day. It would be different if I were getting support and back-up from the administration, but I’m not and I’m tired of doing it all by myself.