at riskEducators across the nation work with disengaged students day in and day out. The reasons these students are unmotivated are too many to name. Their lives outside of school for unknown reasons are challenging so school becomes unimportant for them. Whatever it is that is bothering them away from school bleeds directly into the classroom only to make students withdraw from the academic process. These students do not always act out with aggressive behaviors though. Some of them can be silent or keep to themselves but they do not engage themselves in any part of the learning process. This can be detrimental to their social and academic development as a student. As teachers, the only thing we can do some times is to create meaningful relationships with them because they find nothing interesting about things like scientific notation or writing an essay. Looking for ways to connect with them becomes a bigger priority. Let’s face it, we are not going to make these students learn through force or mandates.ย 

Consequently, some of their disruptive and relentless behaviors emotionally drain teachers because there is almost nothing that can be done to curb their interruptions in class. We can repeatedly send them to the office and write disciplinary referrals but they seem to be immune from these disciplinary measures. What can we do? It’s as if though they compete with others for a prize to collect the most referrals. To deal with such behaviors, some teachers take an iron fisted approach with these students and kick them out of class all the time. ย Every teacher is entitled to their approach with disruptive students but the more students spend time out of class the more they lose the opportunity to learn. That is just my opinion. ย I get it. Why should disruptive students interrupt themselves and other students in class right? I understand why some teachers might take the “get out of my class” route. The interruptions can be too much to teach their classes.ย 

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One thought on “Changing Moods, Not Minds”

  1. I’m absolutely agree with you Mr. Garcia most of the times teachers get emotional and forget what is behind every life’s kid, therefore that kind of behaviour increase the problem instead of solving it, although I can not deny that it must be really hard for teachers to manage those situations but an effort must be done if we want a better place for them and also for us.

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