Who would think that my student teaching is nearly over and I am about to be graduating in less than 2 months. The weeks are flying by and I feel that I am never on top of what I need to be doing, I guess this is something that I will need to get used to my first year.
My case study student has had her up and downs lately. We started out with a behavior problem, my CT and I worked with her and her behavior. On my first week of fulltime teaching it was Friday and we were both so proud and excited about her behavior from the week. We decided to talk to her parents and let them know that she was really improving in the class and we were so proud of her. And then it went straight downhill from there. She has really turned 180 degrees and it is bad. I am noticing that her behavior is really getting to me and it is affecting the whole class.
We had a student at the beginning of the year that left in October and now he is back and I feel that she is trying to fight him for attention. He gets A LOT of negative attention and she wants all the attention. She has taken to meowing like a cat, screaming out and when in timeout she rocks in the chair. My TA becomes so frustrated that she puts her in the hallway that I really don’t appreciate, but I do not want to have a difficult time with the student.
We have discussed the behavior management and have used different forms to ease the situation. I am going to talk to the student about how much I care about her and her being in the classroom. We have also discussed alternative assignments for her to do as incentives. Since she loves cats, my CT and I have discussed working with her and a research project that will be her incentive to be a better student in the class.
I really care about my student and I feel that since the work is so easy for her, she is not able to keep herself engage which is leading to her behavior problems in the classroom.
Meowing like a cat is really interesting form of getting attention. Gotta give it to her that she is creative for sure. But I understand the difficulty in behavior management with your TA. That can be a difficult thing to approach because you do not want to send her out of the room, but at the same time do not want to undermine the TA’s authority either. Hopefully your talk with your student will go well. I will be interested to see!
Huh… interesting. Sorry about the difficulties with your TA. I never could have imagined the impression a TA would make on your life as a teacher. It adds a different dynamic to teaching…
Good luck with your student. That craving of attention, either good or bad, can be difficult. Sorry.
This is definitely an interesting situation. It really makes me think about what her situation is like at home. If I remember correctly, she comes from a very stable, middle class household, correct? Does she get too much attention at home, and doesn’t like when she is at school and doesn’t receive all the attention. Or does she not get enough attention at home and is fighting for it at school? Her behavior and the ways she is acting are all very different and odd, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the year pans out.