Dealing with a disruptive student can be a difficult task throughout an entire school year. Sometimes as a teacher you can try to ignore the problem or punish the student. As a disruptive student myself, I constantly found myself shoved in a corner away from all other students. This solution was neither good for my self esteem or my learning. You see as soon as I was shoved in a corner my mind would completely shut off and I would be angry at the teacher. Even though she/he was doing the best they could with my behavior. In this article I will cover this specific problem and how you as a teacher and parent can better address it.
First of all, you need to understand one of the major reasons I would be disruptive was I didn’t understand what was being taught. As a student I had some sort of insecurity that made me feel stupid asking any type of question. Therefore if I did not understand the subject I would ignore what was happening around me. As part of this process I would completely shut off the teacher and talk to people around me. However, if I understood a topic and enjoyed it I would not talk and pay attention for the entire class period. So the question then becomes how can we encourage students to engage if they do not understand what is being taught? This is a problem faced by millions of teachers all around the world today. To be honest there is no specific answer that will solve all the problems, but there are some techniques we can use to help.
The first way to engage students is by using technology in the classroom. You need to make a lesson exciting and fun for the students. As a teacher you are competing with students who now have cell phones and texting any time they want. You need to create an interactive experience that encourages the student to learn and succeed. Not only does an interactive experience help learning but it can also help guide you with your lesson plan. There are a few resources available for free online that can help with actual lessons using technology.
The next tip is to encourage students to ask questions. You need to make the classroom a safe place for which a child will not feel judged if he/she does not understand a concept. Using technology in the classroom can help aid in this problem. As a child who did not want to ask questions in fear of being made fun you need to find a way to break down that barrier. One way in which this can be accomplished is by allowing anonymous questions to be asked. If you do not have the classroom technology you can simply have student’s text you questions during the lesson. This will allow student to ask questions without feeling the pressure of students around them. Now this is not the perfect answer but you have to find a way to break down this barrier to reach the students who are causing problems.