At the high school I had previously substituted at for several years:
I am not good at discipline. That's why I changed from being a substitute teacher to being an intervention specialist, where a main teacher has to deal with discipline problems. One of the students I encountered in a five-day assignment was a freshman with black hair cut almost in a bowl cut. He was slightly swarthy (not African or African-American), had fine features, brown eyes and what seemed to me to be intelligence.
He started right away as a discipline problem, wandering around the classroom, not doing his classwork (a Xeroxed chapter from a workbook about physics that had blank spaces where answers to questions were supposed to be filled in). We had a few brief conversations in which he revealed that he is from Yemen. His father was in the Yemen military and was back in Yemen, so the student was living with his uncle. He volunteered that he is from Yemen at the beginning of our conversation.
Somewhere in the midst of this conversation, and without relevance or previous mention, he said something or other about Israel. I look Jewish. My father was Jewish racially and culturally. But I wasn't going to get drawn into a political discussion with this kid, who was engaging in a diversionary tactic to avoid schoolwork, which I was insisting that he do.
I explained to him, since he was engaging in eighth-grade behavior, that he was no longer in primary school and had graduated to secondary school where certain more mature behaviors are required. He refused to do his work. At the end of the period, he took his workbook pages over to another student, copied the answers, and handed me the paper after about two minutes of writing.
I took no disciplinary action the first day because I wanted to find out from other teachers how he behaved in their classes and what they thought about him. But I did note on his paper that he had co[pied it, that I had seen him do this, and that he shouldn't get credit for the classwork.
One teacher in ESL (English as a Second Language) told me the girls strongly disliked him and tried to sit as far away from him as possible. She also told me that he had complained to another teacher that a particular bit of information -- she didn't specify what -- was contrary to Islam."
My classroom was set up containing rows of desks facing a portable blackboard and with another area behind the blackboard containing chairs and desks, tables, computers and the teacher's desk. If I placed myself properly I was able to see most of what went on in the classroom from a position next to the blackboard
In the next class, I told that as he knew that the day before he had wasted his time wandering around the classroom and that he had plagiarized his classwork, so I was going to require that he sit at a table behind the blackboard while doing his work, and that he was NOT going to attempt to use a computer. He objected strenuously. His protests were punctuated here and there with something I could only characterize as little animal noises. Bizarre ! Special Education candidate ?
At this point, after he had tried to disobey my instructions several dozen times, I told him I was going to write him up for disciplinary action based on his refusal to do what he was told to do, and on his general insolence, disrespect and rudeness to me as a teacher.
At this, he tried to exert what amounted to blackmail. He told me that he was going to tell the administration that I was prejudiced against Arabs. I told him it wouldn't work because people at the school know me better.
In this class there is another young man from Yemen who looks quite different. The two of them have highly similar names. They were both trying to play name confusion with me by giving different names for themselves, but I had solved that by getting a school printout of their record, which had a photo of the student. I could tell each student's identity.
I did, indeed, write this student up for disciplinary actions. I also told him that if his bad behavior continued I would call his uncle. The last day of the five-day period I spent substituting for this science teacher, because we had covered a little more ground than necessary, I gave the class a 21-question quiz based on the week's material. All questions were true or false and students had merely to circle the correct answer. Some of the students did quite well, getting only one or two questions wrong. This particular young man, however, scored at about 50%, a score he would receive if he had just randomly answered.
Because of him and his fellow, I have had to think a lot about prejudice. Where is the line between fairness and unfairness in dealing with kids like this ? Had he not stated that he was from Yemen, I would never have thought about it. In another post I'll discuss more about this subject because all teachers have negative feelings about certain students. It is just something we have to deal with.
I am not good at discipline. That's why I changed from being a substitute teacher to being an intervention specialist, where a main teacher has to deal with discipline problems. One of the students I encountered in a five-day assignment was a freshman with black hair cut almost in a bowl cut. He was slightly swarthy (not African or African-American), had fine features, brown eyes and what seemed to me to be intelligence.
He started right away as a discipline problem, wandering around the classroom, not doing his classwork (a Xeroxed chapter from a workbook about physics that had blank spaces where answers to questions were supposed to be filled in). We had a few brief conversations in which he revealed that he is from Yemen. His father was in the Yemen military and was back in Yemen, so the student was living with his uncle. He volunteered that he is from Yemen at the beginning of our conversation.
Somewhere in the midst of this conversation, and without relevance or previous mention, he said something or other about Israel. I look Jewish. My father was Jewish racially and culturally. But I wasn't going to get drawn into a political discussion with this kid, who was engaging in a diversionary tactic to avoid schoolwork, which I was insisting that he do.
I explained to him, since he was engaging in eighth-grade behavior, that he was no longer in primary school and had graduated to secondary school where certain more mature behaviors are required. He refused to do his work. At the end of the period, he took his workbook pages over to another student, copied the answers, and handed me the paper after about two minutes of writing.
I took no disciplinary action the first day because I wanted to find out from other teachers how he behaved in their classes and what they thought about him. But I did note on his paper that he had co[pied it, that I had seen him do this, and that he shouldn't get credit for the classwork.
One teacher in ESL (English as a Second Language) told me the girls strongly disliked him and tried to sit as far away from him as possible. She also told me that he had complained to another teacher that a particular bit of information -- she didn't specify what -- was contrary to Islam."
My classroom was set up containing rows of desks facing a portable blackboard and with another area behind the blackboard containing chairs and desks, tables, computers and the teacher's desk. If I placed myself properly I was able to see most of what went on in the classroom from a position next to the blackboard
In the next class, I told that as he knew that the day before he had wasted his time wandering around the classroom and that he had plagiarized his classwork, so I was going to require that he sit at a table behind the blackboard while doing his work, and that he was NOT going to attempt to use a computer. He objected strenuously. His protests were punctuated here and there with something I could only characterize as little animal noises. Bizarre ! Special Education candidate ?
At this point, after he had tried to disobey my instructions several dozen times, I told him I was going to write him up for disciplinary action based on his refusal to do what he was told to do, and on his general insolence, disrespect and rudeness to me as a teacher.
At this, he tried to exert what amounted to blackmail. He told me that he was going to tell the administration that I was prejudiced against Arabs. I told him it wouldn't work because people at the school know me better.
In this class there is another young man from Yemen who looks quite different. The two of them have highly similar names. They were both trying to play name confusion with me by giving different names for themselves, but I had solved that by getting a school printout of their record, which had a photo of the student. I could tell each student's identity.
I did, indeed, write this student up for disciplinary actions. I also told him that if his bad behavior continued I would call his uncle. The last day of the five-day period I spent substituting for this science teacher, because we had covered a little more ground than necessary, I gave the class a 21-question quiz based on the week's material. All questions were true or false and students had merely to circle the correct answer. Some of the students did quite well, getting only one or two questions wrong. This particular young man, however, scored at about 50%, a score he would receive if he had just randomly answered.
Because of him and his fellow, I have had to think a lot about prejudice. Where is the line between fairness and unfairness in dealing with kids like this ? Had he not stated that he was from Yemen, I would never have thought about it. In another post I'll discuss more about this subject because all teachers have negative feelings about certain students. It is just something we have to deal with.
