Ideas to Deal With Disruptive Students in the Classroom

Ideas to Deal With Disruptive Students in the Classroom
Page content

What is a Teacher to Do?

Every teacher knows that it only takes one bad egg to ruin the dozen. The reality is that most teachers have two or three dozen students to contend with and more than one misbehaved student per dozen.

So then, teachers must learn to deal with problematic behavior and know how to keep the students with disruptive behavior from affecting the good students.

What Constitutes a Habitually Disruptive Student?

An habitually disruptive student is a student that disrupts class constantly, repeatedly, and intentionally. These students have been counseled for their behavior, have been referred to the discipline office for infractions, and have had their parents notified by the teacher/principal.

Generally, these disruptive students are going to disrupt class regardless of the measures that teachers implement. Many of these students will disrupt class several times during one class period and tend to be students with a lot of demerits and problematic lives outside of school. In most cases, parents are unable to discipline these students as the students will not respect the limitations or restrictions that the parents have set in place.

Actions Teachers Can Implement

Such disruptive behavior often puts teachers in a bind, especially if the disruptive behavior is not occurring in all of the students’ classes. Generally, if a student misbehaves in one class, then the student is misbehaving in all classes.

In certain situations, a student feels the need to act out in one specific class. Doing so allows the student to test a specific teacher, maybe because of the teacher’s gender, appearance, age classroom management skills, etc.

If a student is acting out in one specific class, the teacher experiencing the problematic behavior can talk to the student’s other teachers and see how the student is behaving in his other classes. Work with the students’ other teachers and get a feel for the student and then make whatever arrangements in your classroom that might facilitate positive behavior from the student.

If Networking Does Not Work, Try Again

If talking to other teachers does not work, continue to write the student up each and every day for his or her disruptive behavior. The student will get to a point in which he or she is unable to misbehave and to disrupt. If the student continues to disrupt, there will come a point where the student will face serious consequences.

Also, research the laws in your state and see what can be done with habitually disruptive students. In some cases, parents are required by law to attend a parent conference after his/her student receives a certain number of demerits or disrupts class some many times.

There are options that teachers can take, though many are time-consuming, but in some cases, eliminating disruptive behavior is work, but worth every minute a teacher spends rectifying the problem.

References

  • Teaching experience.