I went "old school" on one of my most problematic students this week. It was a big risk going there, because it might have blown up in my face, but I went there.
Fueled by hormones and not enough sleep and the fact that it was the last period of the day - I was not in the mood to play games, to play the wait for them to stop talking game. I was not game.
Every day there are off-topic, unnecessary comments from this student. In his defense, he is not the only one. He just happens to be the loudest one, and perhaps the most persistent one. But on this day I had HAD it. I just looked at him, and walked over to him in front of the whole class, crouched down, got as near to him as I dared and said, "Enough. Seriously. Enough. Excuse me. Look at me when I'm talking to you. This needs to stop immediately, and I will be talking with you after class." The rest of the class looked on with eyes the size of saucers. As they worked quietly on their work I pulled out my discipline referral form. I filled it out explaining the nature of this students "generally disruptive behavior" and left it unsigned. When class was out I called the student over and we looked at the form together. This is basically what it said:
"Bobby" has been consistently disruptive in class and had several warnings and opportunities to improve his behavior. On 11/5 spoke with "Bobby" after class and we agreed that he would make great efforts to improve his behavior. If he does not, he understands that this referral will be signed and turned over to the discipline office."
Then I just went for it. I told him, "I'm not sure why you are being so disruptive and constantly having outbursts. Maybe you are trying to impress someone or be funny, but the other students find it annoying, and many of them expressed their frusteration to me during parent-teacher conferences."
This nearly made him cry, but I think he needed to hear it. I think often students do not realize that their attempts to impress their peers are often not successful.
