Ms. Johnson was a new third grade teacher, whose passion about teaching has always been discounted by a few naughty students. She brought in plenty of interesting materials to excite her students. However, she quickly became frustrated when the class management issues got in the way. Johnny was Ms. Johnson’s biggest headache. He could not calm down, as he was constantly chatting, whistling, moving around the room, or pushing other kids. Although Johnny was excited about learning new stuff, his lack of self-control always got him into trouble. Ms. Johnson considered him the most disruptive student.
Today, Ms. Johnson started teaching a geography lesson. She brought in a few talking globes, which would generate speech or pronounce names of geographical areas when buttons were pressed. After the first part of instruction, she passed along some worksheets for students to explore the globes and find answers. Johnny started pushing buttons one by one and hearing all the speech entries from the globe. He was laughing out loud and was very much obsessed by the globe. He refused to let others touch his globe by physically pushing other students away. Even after Ms. Johnson demanded him to pass the globe to the other students, he still would not cooperate. With resentment, Ms. Johnson contacted the principal’s office and sent Johnny over to the principal.
Johnny was shocked and scared. He felt terrible and miserable at first. The secretary pointed a “time-out” chair for him to sit in. At the end of the hour, Johnny was sent back. Nobody questioned or reprimanded him and the principal did not even talk to him. He felt fine and triumphant when he returned to Ms. Johnson’s room.
At the end of the day, Ms. Johnson chatted with her next door teacher Mrs. Smart, another third grade veteran teacher, about the difficult Johnny and her decision to send for the principal this morning.
“That’s not a good move,” Mrs. Smart said, “Johnny would get away with it. He is not afraid of the principal any more. The next time you send him to the office, he would feel even more proud. However, this will make you look bad and stupid. The principal would think you don’t know how to manage your students. This could affect your annual review.”
“What should I do?”
Mrs. Smart continued, “If I were you, I would have a good conversation with Johnny. He is curious and sometimes out of control. If you give him some attention and demand him to follow certain procedures to take control, he could easily become your support. Or you can even assign him some responsibilities to help calm down other disruptive students.”
“I think I am going to give it a try.”
