Hey y’all. I teach 6 year olds in an English-only afterschool program and one of the girls has been at my throat from almost the start. I’ve been at this job for about 3 and a half months now.
This is my third job teaching kids and I’ve never had a student behave this way.
She can be very mean and has even gone so far as to throw something at me or push me while I have my back turned to her. Apart from that, she’ll be generally disruptive in the class, try as much as possible to hide her classwork from me, and displays displeasure every time she has to do anything involving me. When she does something marginally upsetting I’ll usually just continue on with the class or acknowledge that she shouldn’t do that (ie. if she hides her workbook from me I’ll tell her that I need to be able to see so that I can help her).
Our relationship has definitely improved and she is less nasty than she used to be, but I feel that is because she knows she can’t get away with being a giant bully. When she threw something at me, I immediately got upset with her, told her that she might hurt someone, and that throwing things at people is mean. I told her if she does it again, she would have to stand in the corner.
I’m male and co-teach with a woman who handles the English classes. I handle math and programming (also in English though). This particular student has nothing against my co-teacher apart from occasionally being uncooperative.
I think that some of her behavior stems from insecurity, especially because while she is good at English, a lot of the other kids are faster than her at math and programming and I’ve seen her care about her ability before. Regardless, I want to teach her that not being as skilled at something doesn’t mean she can put others down.
I’ve tried sitting down and playing games with her and my co-teacher at the same time (so she can see that we have mutual friends). I’ve tried talking to her directly about what might make my classes more enjoyable to her. I try reprimanding her more frequently when I see blatantly poor behavior. However, it still feels like it’s a very slow uphill climb.
I want her to know that I’m friendly and here to help but I also want her to know that she can’t treat me poorly or look down on me.
7 comments
/r/teachinginjapan
Have you tried having the woman ask her what the issue is? Maybe she might be more comfort talking to a woman.
It’s hard with six year olds to get them to open up! But the behaviour is bad enough not to ignore. If it stems from insecurity from poor performance maybe one on one tutoring might help. It could be entirely unrelated to learning and could be bullying by another student or lashing out to home issues. More reasons maybe chats with the female teacher might help. I’ve seen acting out from kids due to divorcing parents.
The behaviour certainly needs to be clamped down on now otherwise a very difficult teenage years awaits her and her parents
lol
If it were up to me I would just kick her the fuck out of the class and tell her parents they can re-enroll her when she stops being a disruptive little shit……… but I’m not good with kids so.
Is there a way to involve her parents? Have you “threatened” her with the involvement of her parents? I guess kicking her out for good isn’t an option but a bit of parental pulling in the same direction might help if the threat alone doesn’t work.
How is your icy stare? And what if all the difficult questions that you know she cannot answer ended up with her? Public humiliation sure is mean but … It’s not like you haven’t tried more subtle approaches. Some kids are a-holes. She’s cleverly exploiting a carrot/stick ratio that works in her favor. More stick then. By the sound of it, it’s an experience she needs, possibly because boundary setting at home leaves a lot to be desired. Even if you feel bad being a jerk to her you might be doing her a favor in the long run.
Don’t let her walk all over you. Do what some of the Japanese teachers do; scream at her for 15 minutes, flip her desk and if she throws something at you then throw a chair back at her or drag her kicking and screaming out of your class.
More seriously, if you’re having problems like this then it might be an idea to have a word with the parents, you have no idea what is going on at home so it could be a domestic issue or she just has issues with male teachers in general, in which case you shouldn’t take it personally. Definitely try and get the issue resolved ASAP because it will disrupt the class and give the other students the idea that that sort of behaviour is acceptable in your class.
She may have a “crush” on you and don’t know how to express 😂