I Understand

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2004 : February : 8

I Understand
By GM

Hi Erin:

I do understand why you find it hard to reward students who are a continuous behavior problem. I teach groups of students up to 16 at a time. A lot of my students have difficulty academically as well as socially/emotionally.

They can be vicious to each other, particularly one group. A few can be really hateful to me. At times, I feel like being hateful right back, I get so much of it at times. But then I remind myself that people who are acting hateful and who are uncooperative are very, very wounded inside. On some level, they are feeling unloved, incompetent, frustrated, etc. A lot

of time I think they are totally unaware of their feelings.

I have posted on my overhead a line from Saint Francis' poem: Where there is hatred, let me sow love. No one else can see it but me. I find when I am having a trying days, it helps remind me to respond with compassion, not frustration. I find when I use a soft voice and show compassion to mean, uncooperative students, they soften up. They aren't close to ever being perfect, but it calms them down. I used to handle it differently and found it just made them more aggressive and angry. GM