Struggling Student

After watching the children in “Misunderstood Minds,” I started connecting the behaviors of Adam’s, to a little boys in my clinical classroom. A slight difference in the two is the aggressive behavior that my student displays to his peers. Adam didn’t start showing signs of this behavior till his teenage years.
From day one of clinical I was drawn to this student. I could tell after the first five minutes that he had a horrible time when it came to sitting still for any amount of time. He was fiddling with his shoe strings, looking around him to see what he could get into, and always paying attention to anything other than what he was supposed to be doing. I was surprised that when the teacher would call on him, he would be able to give a correct answer to the questions she would ask. While working in groups, he absolutely did not like anyone to tell him what to do but certainly didn’t mind giving out instructions to others around him. If another child was on the computer, he would take their ear phones off and say “It’s my turn.” A few of his classmates would tell me that he was mean. A boy that sets beside him told me one day, “I’m his only friend.” This shocked me. For the first time, I saw him show signs of care about what his classmates thought of him. During whole group, the teacher is constantly singling him out; yelling his name, threatening to take one of his “coins,” and sending him back to sit at his desk while everyone else still sits on the “reading rug.”
All the Kindergarteners write in their journals every day. They write the date, first and last name, number s 1 – 10, and a sentence. After completing, they are allowed to illustrate the picture. I flipped through his journal and all he had were drawings for every day. Rarely did he do any of the handwriting and never did he complete all of what the students are supposed to. I wondered how this had happened, continuously for so many days. Why the teacher hadn’t noticed ? I soon figured out why. This was the only time the teacher wasn’t continuously interrupting all the other students because of this little boy. She acted as if this was a “relief” period from him. He was totally into making his illustration that he couldn’t care less about what was going on around him so he wasn’t causing in interruptions. The other students who would try to skip over the writing, the teacher would quickly get them back on the task of the required writing before you were allowed to color and assist them if they needed help spelling words for their sentence.
So obviously something is seriously wrong with this picture. That day after I saw this, I went over and started talking to the little boy. I asked him questions about his picture that he was making. At first, he would even look up at me and barely gave me any kind of answer to my questions. After I stuck around through the whole twenty minutes of journal time, he opened up to me a whole lot more. He actually started to act a little surprised that someone was interested and cared about what he was doing. Rather it was coming over to correct him and get him back on the writing track or to pay attention to his drawing. I imagine that in the beginning of the year, the teacher had to redirect him on the handwriting path from going straight to drawing. This must of got old for the teacher fast and by the second part of the year, no longer cares about what this little boys “handwriting journal” consists of, as long as he’s not being a class disruption. I came back for my second day of clinical three days later. The first thing the teacher told me was what this little boy had said the following day after my first day being in this classroom. He came up to his teacher and said “Hey, is that girl going to be here today?” So, he didn’t remember my name. He didn’t remember that I would only be there on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Maybe he didn’t even remember that the reason I was in their classroom was because I wanted to be a teacher someday. But I bet this little boy remembered that “that girl” expressed interest and concern into what he was doing. Something other than the scolding or correcting he was used to.
I am not totally sure of Adam’s classroom behavior as a Kindergartener. From the video it seemed as if the teachers had somewhat given up on him, just as they did in the Purcell-Gates story to the little boy. I can’t speak from a teacher’s point of view of how exactly this type of situation can be because I have not made it there yet. I am sure that there are days where I might feel helpless and discouraged, but will certainly never give up on any of the students that are in my classroom.
It was very sad while watching “Misunderstood Minds,” because Adam wanted to learn so bad. He wanted to be smart. He didn’t want to be the child that always got the bad grades, the student that was embarrassed and afraid to read out loud because of his slow pace and word uncertainty, and I’m sure he didn’t want to disappoint his teacher or his parents. After so long of going through such environment in the classroom, a student loses all hope in themselves and gives up all care of anything having to do with school. I am afraid that this same pattern will happen to this little boy.
Now, every day when the teacher says it is journal time, I pull a chair up right beside this boy. He has been working very well on his handwriting and still doing fabulous illustrations. I do have to keep him on track often, but he does get all his writing completed. The teacher makes comments all the time about how well we work together. The line “Oh, he sure is a handful” with the classic eye roll has been used more than once.
Not only children with behaviors as this little boy and Adam, but all children need this type of attention. Instead of always giving them negative attention, why not try at starting to point out something positive? I know that a teacher isn’t always going to be able to be positive, and I strongly believe there has to be a certain level of discipline. I think sometimes we are capable of overlooking the value of student’s work, especially when it is supposedly incorrect. Children absolutely have to feel valued in a classroom and that a teacher has high expectations/believes in them. Once adolescents start thinking and feeling otherwise, is when they start to head down the path of destruction, which could lead them to so much negativity.