Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Why Do Students Give the Teacher Control?

Mrs. Scott, the principal stopped by the room as she so often does, just to see how things were going.  Up came Chomper Sue, the gum chewingest kid to hit the class in many a year.  Mrs. Scott told her to spit out the gum.  Boy, did Sue just make her teacher happy.

To this point in the year, Sue had been doing fairly well--much better than last year.  It's a shame she couldn't see that she was well on her way to wrecking her great start.  In less than a half hour, she was chomping away again, slapping her gums together and cracking her bubble gum.  That made two write-ups in one class.

After lunch, Sue came up the stairs for her afternoon class, mouth wide open, chomping on more gum.  What a day--three writeups for the same offense.  This earned her some time on the wall during recess the next day.  Sticking to her pattern of self-destruction, Sue did not stand on the wall today, so this earned her two more days.

In less than two days, Sue aggravated her favorite teacher over and over.  She showed disrespect  chewing gum, which is so trivial, but then she just kept flaunting her disregard for school rules.

In the process of all of this mess, Sue who thinks of herself as an independent young woman, gave up all control of herself at school.  She became a discipline problem, disrepecting teachers and ignoring rules.  In the process, the teachers are forced to deal with Sue's behavior, and deal with the aggravation of a student that can not do the most simple things to be successful.

I wonder if Chomper Sue knows all she lost over three sticks of gum?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93193895@N00/3714880038/
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4 comments:

Mrs. Caudill said...

Must have been some awefully good gum! Your post really makes a good point. I wonder if she realizes that she also loses the respect that others may have had for her. It's hard to respect someone who continually makes poor choices.

kristi allison said...

This is frustrating for everyone, but did anyone ever think that maybe more is going on with Sue than just her being defiant and disrespectful? Many times kids like this may be acting out because they really need help. Hopefully she will learn to be more direct, instead of making such bad decisions that ultimately affect her in many negative ways.

Mr. McGuire said...

Hopefully she will learn to be more direct, instead of making such bad decisions that ultimately affect her in many negative ways

This is a great point and definitely what I hope to see out of her.

P.S. She has stopped chewing gum in class. :)

Taylor Steele said...

My teachers are always on us for chewing gum in class. So we simply get up spit our gum out then put another one in at the next class. Its like the water cycle, evopation,condensation,precipation.... The gum quickly flows into the mouth,gets tumbled aruond for a while,then falls to the bottom of the trash can. Then it happens over, and over agian! :P