Resolving a Student Issue

Within the district in which I am completing my internship experience, it appears to be the norm that an equal number of succeeding students are accompanied by a group with behavioral issues in the classroom. While I have seen and heard about many extreme cases in the building, I myself have been fortunate to only deal with minor issues. The largest issue for me revolves around student motivation in the classroom and work ethic pertaining to content-related material. The first step in attempting to resolve the issue was to take ownership of the problem and look to engage the student in this example with more hands-on or personally relevant material. After doing so, the student continued to show a lack of initiative and effort in the classroom, which his grades directly reflected. Luckily for me, my mentor teacher also happens to be the department chair, so after discussing with the student informally that his effort needed to change we scheduled a meeting with just the student after class.

As you could probably guess, the behavior continued following the after-class meeting. A call home to his parents ensued in which the mother informed us that she had also received the same complaint about the student in several other of his classes. With this information it was requested to have a parent-teacher conference within a conference style room with all of his teachers. The student accompanied by his mother met with the group of teachers to confront the student on the issue and attempt to find a resolution. Fortunately, in this case, the parent was on the side of the teachers and pressed the student to change his ways.

Following the conference there was some noticeable change from the student in the classroom. While he may not have been the most enthusiastic when completing work, he was sure to turn in assignments on time and limit his distractions during the class period. The conference seemed to resolve the issue for a few weeks, however, a slight dip has started to show as he reverts to his old habits. To address the change again, I had a quick discussion with him recently before class in the hall, in which the student was respectable and complied. It seems as if this student is one in which we will always have to stay on top of, but at this point at least he knows we truly care.

Looking back on the whole situation, as I am so often inclined to do, I cannot think of a better way of dealing with the issue. A hierarchy of proceeding steps was taken to attempt to get through to the student. Unfortunately, it took going all the way to the top, his mother, however in some cases this may be just the thing that is needed. I often wonder about what would happen if the parent responded in the opposite way and put blame on the teacher? I know this case has happened for other educators and it is one in which I have to truly sit down and think about the best approach to get through to both parent and student alike. While there is no easy answer for this type of situation, it may be one in which you do not know how to respond until you are faced with doing so.