It's All About Your Attitude and Not Theirs

After all these years of teaching middle school English, I wish that I could say that I have the answer to rid your classroom of all bad attitudes. Unfortunately, I can't because it comes with the territory. A bad attitude in a middle schooler is usually the sign of a lack of self-confidence. I know, it doesn't seem that way, but I've dealt with enough to know that a bad attitude is not about me. It's just the way that the kid is projecting him or herself. 

I've tried several different ways to deal with it, and very few are effective all of the time. Like most things in teaching, you just have to go with it and see what works for that kid at that moment.

At the beginning of last school year, I had a student who refused to write anything (not even his name) on a piece of paper. I tried threats and punishments. I moved him away from the group that he was trying to impress. I turned his name into the administration--he spent three days in in-school suspension for disrespecting the classroom routine. Nothing. He refused to write.

One day, I'd had it and I was ready to give up. The rest of the class was working on their daily pages, so I went over to him and asked him to come sit closer to me. Reluctantly, he did. Our prompt for the day was to write about someone you admire, so I simply asked him to tell me...no writing...just talk to me. I told him that I would give him the daily grade for writing if he would talk to me about someone he admires. 

He did. He told me about his older brother who was in the Marines serving in the Middle East. It was not an earth-shattering revelation or an outpouring of love on either of our parts, but at least he cooperated somewhat. I held up my end of the bargain and gave him the credit.

Over the next few weeks, he would come to my desk and talk his "daily pages" to me. It worked okay, but I knew that it wasn't what I was there to teach him. I needed to evaluate his writing so that I could help him improve. One day when he came to my desk, I had a piece of paper and asked him to write his name and date on it because I needed proof for his portfolio that we were conferencing. It worked. Well, you know what happened, it was like a little trickle that finally gave way...by the end of the year, I was getting 4 or 5 lines out of him. 

He was not proficient at the end of the year, but he did make gains on his value-added. The major attitude was gone and in its place was this beautiful young man who had a story to tell. 

I did not work a miracle. I did what teachers all across America do everyday. I continued working with this young man and didn't give up. I found a way to make it work.

Remember, it's all about your attitude!

Melissa