My Own Personal Biases

I feel that I had an important moment in my learning this week when we had to think and talk about our own personal biases that we may have going into a classroom and how those could affect our students.

For me, I felt that I had a bias towards students that acted out in the classroom either by not listening or following directions or even just always being disruptive. I felt as if these students just didn't care about their work and they didn't want to be at school and that's why they acted that way. In reality, there could be so much more going on behind the scenes. For example, a student could act out because they are bored, want attention, have something going on at home, etc. There are a number of reasons as to why a student is acting out in class.

It's important for me as their teacher to still accept them and not have biases toward them because they have as much of a right to learn as the student sitting next to them that always does their work and never interrupts. I felt the need to research different ways that I can handle students like this in my classroom because I want to know how to talk to these students and how to handle the situation when it arises. Here are some strategies I found:
- Remain calm: There is no sense in "adding fuel to the fire." The student may be striving for attention and that would be a sure fire way to make sure they get that by getting upset about what they are doing.
- Make sure the student understands that you are not upset with them; you are upset about their behavior at the time: This was important to me because often times as educators we may be the only person in that child's life that doesn't scream every word they hear at them. It's important to let the student know that what they are doing is not acceptable, but that you still care about them as a student and want to help them.
- Listen: There is obviously a reason that student is acting out or upset and it's important to listen to find out what that is. Sometimes all a student wants is for someone to listen. We don't always know what the situation is like that we send our students home to.
- Speak to a student in private: There is no sense in humiliating that student in front of their entire class because they aren't doing what they are supposed to be doing. Students have feelings and nobody wants to be called out in front of their peers.
- Ignore minimal problems instead of disrupting: Some students are always going to tap their pencil, make noises, etc. If it's not seen as distracting to the other students, sometimes it's just best to let it go. I don't want to cause a bigger disruption by calling them out than the actual thing the student was doing.

This correlates directly with the NCTCS Standard 2: Teachers establish a respectful environment for a diverse population of students. We are going to face many different types of learners in our classroom and we have to respect each one of those. We have to understand that some students are dealing with things at home, some are striving for attention, some are bored and need to be challenged more, and so much more. All of our students are diverse and learn in different ways. We, as their teachers, need to make sure they are learning based on their personal needs.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/25-sure-fire-strategies-handling-difficult-students