It is only when you actually do things that you can fail. In fact, as you do, you will inevitably make mistakes; that's life. Today I had a couple of those, not really awful mess ups, but important enough to stick in my mind for the whole day.
Both were with what most people would label as "bad students", which is no surprise, as most teacher's screw ups happen with that kind of students. I like to think of them as the "gourmets of education", following the ideas that authors such as Daniel Pennac have stated over school failure. Some students are the "wild boars of education", omnivores who will succeed at learning, almost regardless of the circumstances. Others are much more exquisite in their taste when it comes to the what, how and when of education, and those are the ones who pose a challenge to the teacher. I like that sort of students, because they force you to try your best, and they always teach you new things.
My first screw up of the day was with one of the second grade students, a 7-year-old. He teared the drawing of one of his groupmates, so I asked him to get some sellotape and fix it. He has a hard time when it comes to making up for having messed up, but during these weeks he has come to respect me and he does obey if I ask something like that of him. First, he took a piece of sellotape way too long and stuck it carelessly, which didn't fix the whole tear, so I asked him to get a smaller piece and stick it carefully. Maybe I should have stopped after that first try and call it even, but I feel that doing that would have sent him the wrong message ("that's all I can expect from you, after all"). After fixing his group mate's paper and me thanking him for that, he turned to his own drawing and started cutting it up with the scissors, ruining it on purpose. I told him not to do that, but he continued. I didn't stop him. After cutting the drawing into small pieces, he coloured it carelessly with crayons, while he had been using felt tip pens to colour neatly before the incident. Shortly after that, it was time to tidy up and finish the lesson; I asked him if he was going to store the drawing in his plastic sleeve, he said no, and he put it in the bin.
The incident lingered in my mind for the rest of the day. As I was coming back from work I thought about why I had let him ruin his work on purpose, and what I could have done instead. On the one hand, I didn't stop him because I was aware that I was saying no too many times, and he needed a break. Then, I also had doubts: should I allow him to do as he pleased with his work, since it was his, after all? Should I allow him to experience the consequences of his act and learn from it? You have to weigh all those things in seconds and give a coherent response to a child, and it's not that easy. So, at the time, I decided to let him do as he pleased. But a small voice has been bugging me all day, saying that he was taking it out on himself, and that I sent him the wrong message: "you must respect your classmates and their work, but you don't need to respect yourself". For a kid who is already labelled in school that is a very wrong message, and that alone should have been enough of a reason for me to prevent him from ruining his work. Instead, I should have sent him to the paper bin and asked him to cut into small pieces a bunch of scrap papers from there. That way, he could have calmed himself down without harming himself.
The second screw up has been in the afternoon, with a 5-year-old. This is a more difficult one, because so far I haven't come up with any ideas yet. A boy has lost his temper and thrown the colouring pencils violently on the floor, so I have asked him to pick them up. He has refused and entered a spiral where he would throw more pencils and more violently, so I have taken away his drawing from him and told him that he could have it back and continue colouring once he picked up his mess. He has even complained that one of the pencils had been dropped by another classmate, and I have asked her to pick it up, which she has done, and I have thanked her for it. He has continued to refuse and when he has started kicking the pencil case I have taken it away from him and taken him out in the corridor with me to try to calm him down. He has tried to run away, and continued to get more agitated. Since I don't know much about this particular boy, and the regular tutor was in the teachers' room just across the corridor, I have taken him there and she has taken care of the situation. The boy has run away and started to throw away coats in the corridor. I have asked the tutor what she does in those situations: "physical containment" she has answered, so now I know. She has forced him to pick up the coats and I have gone back into the classroom, where I had left the English teacher with the rest of the group.
In this second incident, I don't see a clear way to go about next time, or how I could have handled it differently. I know that having gone to the tutor has somewhat diminished my authority, but that doesn't worry me, really. I think it is better to acknowledge that you need help to handle a situation than to really mess up trying to fix it all by yourself. After all, I am a trainee, and that is part of what I am there for. I have thanked the tutor afterwards and apologised for not having been able to handle it by myself. On the other hand, I have not let him do whatever he wanted. I have kept calm as he has lost his temper. But that is just about all I can say I have done all right. I haven't managed to help him deal with his wrath, and I don't really know how I could have.
Both these boys are angry at the world, and they most probably have good reasons to be so. They should be allowed to express that anger and turn all that energy into something positive for themselves and those around them. Helping them in that journey is very demanding for a teacher, but when you encounter a person like that you can't just look somewhere else.
iruzkinik ez:
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