Work with problematic children in the class room

Doc. D-r Ivan Petkov Ivanov

http://www.ivanpivanov.com/ and the University of Shoumen

Bulgarian

English

Introvert, tough child, hyperactivity, emotional and behavioral deviation

Web Article

Parents, Teachers, Researchers, Young People.

1 - 20 pages

This article presents strategies and perspectives for the management of destructive child behavior in the class room. The topics, which are considered are aggressive destructive behavior, hard children, problematic students in class, attention deficit or hyperactivity, students with emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBD), introverted students, aggressors and violators.
Among the described hard children are: the selfish ones, who are used to having all their whims being answered to without questioning, stubborn children, cheeky children; children with problems in the sensual sphere – maliciousness, rudeness, hostility, incredulity, annihilation, lack of consciousness and feeling of guilt; liars and deceivers; lazy children; children with inadequately high self-assessment and low self-criticism; children in envy; class clowns; gossipers.
Some of the main factors for bad behavior according to the author are also listed. The reasons for inattentive and/or hyperactive and impulsive behavior are also presented in details.
Besides the reasons for EBD are being considered and among those are family, membership in a gang, misuse of alcohol and drugs, and also teacher behavior.
The author has considered a research by Philip Gunter & Susan Jack, which discovers that the interactions between the teachers and students with aggressive behavior are rarely positive (a praise or positive outcomes) – in merely 3% of the occasions the teachers react like that. Negative reactions are discovered in 22% of the occasions and respectively trigger further destructive reactions on behalf of the students.
The author has listed the main reasons, according to his opinion, for violence in school.
The material ends with a very useful list of literature and publications for further reading.

In relation to the topic of the hard children, the observation of the author that every student can be a hard one at a certain moment, but that some students become chronically hard due to their feeling of undervaluation by the teacher is quite interesting. The advice given to teachers here is that even the “hardest” child wants to be good, but needs help, respect and love, and because of that it needs its self-confidence to be preserved and not be insulted.
The author directs the attention to the fact that in contemporary society medical treatment is a too frequently used way for dealing with this problem. Doctors and parents overlook the fact that each child goes through certain periods of low attention or hyperactivity.
Another interesting observation is that the teachers often consider the behavior of children with EBD as intolerable and literally shut them out from the educational process, thus neglecting the rule that the educational process should be a dialogue, presupposing the interaction of children with teachers , of children with other students, of children with the teaching materials.
As far as the Philip Gunter & Susan Jack research the author has skillfully summarized their strategies for diminishing the destructive behavior and aggression, namely through diminishing antipathy, evaluation and planning of education, strategies for management of the class, increasing the praises and the attention, effective training interactions and functional research.

http://www.ivanpivanov.com/uploads/sources/113_Rabota-na-uchitelq-s-problemni-uchenici.pdf

23_Rabota-na-uchitelq-s-problemni-uchenici.pdf

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