So, today we had the beloved grade level teams meetings. I have this theory that the farther someone gets from the classroom the less they want to do. Which means that when a directive is given to teachers the result is that there is more for the classroom teacher to do and less for anyone else outside the classroom.
This leads me back to todays' meeting. The purpose was to come up with a plan as a team to deal with student's who are behavior problems. That's sounds great except if you can't even send a student out of class to take a few minutes to calm down or get themselves together what can you do? For resources we were given our wits and prayer. Well, not prayer because you're not allowed to pray in schools these days.
One of the questions on the worksheet asked what the "Trigger" for the students behavior was. The idea being that if the teacher can avoid the trigger, the negative behavior should be at least minimized. The problem is that the trigger for some of these kids is simply being instructed, asked or told what to do. I like to use what I call the drive by instructions because it is not confrontational and sort of disarms the student. But, if a student is agitated or just not in the mood, it is shall we say problematic.
My fellow teachers are getting agitated. The difference is that it may be getting easier to remove a teacher from the classroom than a student.
