Dealing with THAT student

Every teacher has one. THAT student. The kid who doesn't do his homework, has a trillion missing assignments, thirty demerits a quarter, makes excuses for all his (or her) behavior, and doesn't do a damn thing about it.

I've encountered a couple of "those" kids in my short career as a teacher, and they never get any easier. They're always the kids with the smartass answer and the glint in their eye. You know, the one that says, "Ha! I'm smarter than you!"

Trying to teach THOSE kids are hard, because they generally make it impossible to teach the rest of the class. For example, right now I'm teaching one and he likes to repeat or comment on everything I say. Seriously, everything. It's impossible to replicate because he talks so fast that I can't always hear his comments, just murmers.

It's hard for me to say that in order to effectively teach this student you need to have a good working relationship with the parents. That's tricky. Sometimes the student becomes THAT kid because the parents aren't involved in his or her life. Sometimes the parents are too involved, sometimes there's a new sibling at home. Sometimes the parents don't even know what the influence is. And sometimes, the parents make it worse because they make excuses for their child.

When parents make excuses for their kids, you're pretty much at an impasse. They don't want to put their son on medication because "it makes him sleepy." They don't want their daughter to see a counselor because "She doesn't need it". They don't want to accept lower grades for their kids because, "He's a good kid, he just didn't know the assignment needed to be turned in." Ugh. I'm not going to say putting your child on medication is the first option. In many cases it isn't and I believe there are kids who are on meds who really don't need to be taking anything. But I do believe that if a student is showing signs of aggression, passively or actively, they need to see a counselor and perhaps be tested. Students who obsessively and purposely stop the teacher from teaching hurt the class and hurt themselves.

Naturally, it's easy for me to say, "Don't you want to help your child?" I'm not a parent. I go home after school to a child-free zone. I can sit on my high horse and say, "That kid needs meds," and "That kid needs therapy" without thinking about how I would react if someone said to me, "Your daughter is out of control and needs ritalin NOW." Parents generally DO want what's best for their child, and they do want to help, but on their terms. Fortunately (and unfortunately for teachers sometimes) it's their right as a parent and we in the system can only do so much and go so far without their help.

If a parent is open to testing and counseling for a student who needs it, awesome! You are well on your way to a productive working relationship for the benefit for the student. If you, the parents, the counselor, and the student can all work together and have some lines of open communication there's no reason the student can't succeed. As long as there's constant cooperation, the student can turn it around. You might not see a complete 180, but I'm generally happy with a 90 degree turn. I've found I can ignore a student talking constantly if the work is coming in and is generally pretty good. That works for me, but it doesn't work for everyone.

If a parent isn't open to testing and/or counseling, your hands are pretty much tied. You can only do so much without their help. If the parents are being especially difficult, ("He never had these problems until he went into YOUR class!") you can count on the student becoming worse. Sometimes I think parents aren't thinking when they talk to their children. What kind of message does it send when you are trying to find a way to get a student to focus and she goes home to hear, "You're not the problem, you've just got a bad teacher,"? The student is in constant struggle with the adults in her life and will probably go along with whatever she hears at home.

Once last year I had a parent approach me at parent-teacher conferences and demand to know why his child failed. I explained that I'd sent notes home (notes that never actually made it home) and my phone calls were never returned. When I gave the child a failing grade on a progress report, no comment was made and no effort to contact me was given on the part of the parents. Since the student wasn't doing ANY work that quarter, what choice did I have? I had 2 or 3 assignments turned in from the student, and all of them were incomplete. The rest of the work never came to me. As a parent, I would be livid, especially if I didn't know that my child was failing, so I understand the parents wanting to speak with me. However, I didn't appreciate that the "conference" was more the parent yelling at me and telling me that I had no business giving his child a failing grade. "Well who are you to fail my child?" Even after I showed him my gradebook, the parent countered with, "But [my child] is so smart!"

Ugh. I felt like shouting, "Yes! Your child is a genius because you are now convinced that the failing grade is the result of my personal feelings for your kid, and certainly not because your kid doesn't do a damn thing in my classroom!" When I pointed out the empty boxes in my gradebook, the student insisted that the work was complete and turned in. I handed the student a pile of work that was graded and waiting to be returned and asked him/her to find it. The student couldn't. The parent then insisted I lost all his child's work. Now, I will be the first to admit that I am not "organized" in the traditional sense. My desk is a pile of papers that is precariously balanced and might fall to the floor at any time. However, I try to make a point of getting through that pile at least once a week to grade and return work and file away handouts and worksheets. I admitted that it was possible I had misplaced an assignment or two, but 25 assignments? Please. Even I'm not that bad.

As a teacher new to the elementary scene, I felt that in this situation it was better to involve my boss. I haaaaaaaaate having to call on the principal; I feel like I'm a newbie who doesn't know what to do so she runs to the principal to fix it. Thankfully, my boss doesn't always mind when newer teachers are stuck and don't know what to do. I felt that involving her to at least mediate the meeting was a better option than my constant repeating, "Yes, but your child didn't do the work...." It was an awkward meeting, but the parents basically ended the meeting by saying, "Okay, we'll do a better job of asking how the day went." Well, that's a start, but do you honestly think your child is going to open up and say, "Well, lunch was good, but I didn't turn in any work in English, Science, or Math and I definitely don't intend to." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I don't mean to sound to cynical, but I've definitely been put off by negative and uncooperative parents. I start to imagine how I'd respond to that situation if it were my daughter or son. Would I really argue the teacher? Would I really insist that the teacher lost every assignment? I don't know. I like to imagine I'd never be that way, but how can I say that? If you love your kids and want the best for them, it's only natural that you'd want to believe them. After all, you raise them and live with them. How can you possibly be blind to their behavior? As a parent, you want to believe that your child isn't lying to you.

Even when parents aren't open to communication or testing or therapy or whatever, it's important to keep the communication constant. Sending notes home and calling are good means to keep in touch with parents, even if they don't like it. If they have constant-enough feedback, they're more likely to start asking questions before the next problem arises.

One of my coworkers has "purple sheets" for her students. Each month she creates a new sheet for each student and creates a calendar with 4 weeks on it, and she has a box marked for participation, work turned in, test grades, etc. To make it easy on herself, to fill out each box she merely writes a plus sign for great, a negative sign for not great, or a dot to indicate "satisfactory". It goes home on a Thursday and must come home signed on a Friday (so it doesn't get lost over the weekend). Parents really seem to like it because they can see how their child is doing that week and can write comments on the sheets if they are concerned or pleased with their child's progress. Personally, I think this is a great idea. While filling out the sheets takes a bit of time, it's not overly complicated and parents can see if their student is missing any work that week, especially if grades are an issue.

Teachers are constantly trying to figure out THAT student. At lunch at least once a week someone will ask, "How has THAT student been?" and usually the rest of the room will roll their eyes. Isn't that terrible? As teachers we try to figure out a way to help THOSE kids but eventually, after students and parents stand in the way, we're reduced to rolling our eyes and saying, "Same as always." Personally, I hate that. I hate to fail and I hate to feel as though I'm failing a student. I teach in a high-needs, at-risk school. So many of our students are at risk for joining gangs or dropping out of high school. Few will finish, if even attend, college. For kids with so few educational years ahead of them, I don't want to feel like I'm failing in what little time they have left.

I guess this post isn't so much a "strategy" or plan of attack for struggling teachers as it is a sad reality. In my first year of teaching THAT student, I felt like I was failing. I felt like I was the problem and I didn't even stop to think that the student and parents were standing in my way. Now I know better, but that isn't the case for every student. Sometimes the parent isn't standing in the way, and sometimes it is you. When that's the case, it blows. It blows a lot. In my limited experience, the only thing I have to say is that you need to figure out what the problem actually is and work on it. That's not a simple solution, and it's humbling to have to admit that you're not as good at your job as you thought. I haaaaaaaaaaate having to admit that, and I usually have to admit that to myself after a few good/decent days because the next day I will have the day. from. hell.

The best advice I have is to figure out a strategy that works for you and your students. It's not ideal, but the best way to figure out the solution to a problem is to attack it in your classroom with your ideas, not ideas spoon fed from a textbook. Trust me on the textbooks. They're great resources, but they're not standing in front of a class ready to teach.