Have your children ever had an extremely disruptive child in elementary class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
He has not been diagnosed with any specific mental disorder. Yet. Like I said there is an additional medical issue which may cause some of the issues. He is already in a special school.

Has he had a psychiatric evaluation or an evaluation by a psychologist?

I believe he had an evaluation by the school psychologist - I know he was flagged last year. But I'm sure attempting to sort the behaviors with all of the potential causes would make an accurate diagnosis difficult, especially given his age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are many reasons why he disrupts. His home life is a mess. His past is a mess. He has severe learning disabilities which cause him to become very frustrated. And there is a medical condition which probably contributes to it as well.

I guess I can't really expect people who are not teachers to understand this, or for people who aren't familiar with my school and its students to understand what goes on either. As I said - I'd welcome suggestions. If we give up on him, he has zero chance and he has the right to an education.

Maybe the school setting is not right for him. Maybe he needs to be home schooled or go into heavy psycho therapy.

Guess not.. but you can expect people who are parents to demand safe learning environment for their children, and not just 'safe', as in 'everyone ducks when a poor kid with a messed-up home life throws his shoes around', but also 'learning', as in 'mastering material that will be essential for further educational and professional development'.

Geez.

"I guess I can't really expect people who are not teachers to understand this"

I guess the part that you missed is that you are no longer a teacher. How can you call yourself a teacher when teaching has obviously taken a back seat to half-baked therapy for a disruptive kid. There's no teaching going on when you are spending all your time on the disruption. And you have no classroom if you're sending your class out into the hall. You've clearly lost focus and have forgotten your mission and what you were there for in the first place. The disruptor is for someone else to deal with. Make that happen.

[Anonymous]

I guess the part that you missed is that you are no longer a teacher. How can you call yourself a teacher when teaching has obviously taken a back seat to half-baked therapy for a disruptive kid. There's no teaching going on when you are spending all your time on the disruption. And you have no classroom if you're sending your class out into the hall. You've clearly lost focus and have forgotten your mission and what you were there for in the first place. The disruptor is for someone else to deal with. Make that happen.

+1

[Anonymous]

I still don't believe she is any kind of teacher. I have been a teacher and this is one of the biggest complaints that teachers have: policing instead of teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I believe he had an evaluation by the school psychologist - I know he was flagged last year. But I'm sure attempting to sort the behaviors with all of the potential causes would make an accurate diagnosis difficult, especially given his age.

Flagged for what?
I don't see why he can't have an accurate psychiatric diagnosis at this point - there are reliable tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can you call yourself a teacher when teaching has obviously taken a back seat to half-baked therapy for a disruptive kid.

I think that's the key problem - you have taken it up on yourself a job of a therapist. Schooling and therapy are two distinctively different missions. Your mission is to educate, not to heal. It's someone else's job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For all of you complaining about how these kids need to be separated from a regular classroom, you should know the recently released Operational Efficiency Report for FCPS http://www.doe.virginia.gov/school_finance/efficiency_reviews/ recommends the opposite.

Recommendation 2-6: Increase the inclusion of students with disabilities into general education environments.

According to the Virginia Department of Education’s Special Education Performance Reports for 2008 to 2012, Fairfax county has not met the state requirements for LRE for any of the last five years. On all three indicators of how much time students spent in the less restrictive environments with their non-disabled peers, FCPS failed to meet the state target.

As a mother who is trying to get her DS out of a regular classroom, I can tell you it's damn near impossible. The school staff are under enormous pressure to keep kids not just in a FCPS school but in a regular classroom. If you have problem with the number of 'disruptive' kids in school, contact your school board member.

All about the benjamins. The ED elementary centers cost FCPS a *fortune*. My friend was told that they try to save the spaces in them for children who really should be placed in $$$$ private schools with FCPS picking up the tab.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I taught a child once who was extremely disruptive--"they" didn't want to put her in an ED class because she would be around awful kids........

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are many reasons why he disrupts. His home life is a mess. His past is a mess. He has severe learning disabilities which cause him to become very frustrated. And there is a medical condition which probably contributes to it as well.

I guess I can't really expect people who are not teachers to understand this, or for people who aren't familiar with my school and its students to understand what goes on either. As I said - I'd welcome suggestions. If we give up on him, he has zero chance and he has the right to an education.

Maybe the school setting is not right for him. Maybe he needs to be home schooled or go into heavy psycho therapy.

Guess not.. but you can expect people who are parents to demand safe learning environment for their children, and not just 'safe', as in 'everyone ducks when a poor kid with a messed-up home life throws his shoes around', but also 'learning', as in 'mastering material that will be essential for further educational and professional development'.

Geez.

"I guess I can't really expect people who are not teachers to understand this"

I guess the part that you missed is that you are no longer a teacher. How can you call yourself a teacher when teaching has obviously taken a back seat to half-baked therapy for a disruptive kid. There's no teaching going on when you are spending all your time on the disruption. And you have no classroom if you're sending your class out into the hall. You've clearly lost focus and have forgotten your mission and what you were there for in the first place. The disruptor is for someone else to deal with. Make that happen.

Because taking 2-5 minutes a couple times a week to deal with a disruptive student (or any other issue between students - it happens) means I do NO teaching whatsoever. Right. That makes sense.

Part of teaching, especially in elementary, is mediating and teaching social skills. That's just part of the job when working with young kids. Again - I guess people who are not teachers don't realize that.

Did you read any of my posts at all? Do you want a summary of what I do in a day to prove that I am actually teaching? Let's see...

Monday morning:
Morning announcements and morning jobs
Center work - writer's workshop - we are writing narratives. Some students are revising, some students are publishing. Vocabulary. Word study. Guided reading. Guided reading follow up.

Monday math time:
Arrival work and book time (being right after lunch it helps them to have a few minutes to chill and gives me a chance to set up centers)
Group time - number of the day and group instruction
Centers - typically about 4 centers per day

Social studies: we worked on creating maps and map keys. This is our last week of social studies, as we'll switch over to science when the quarter ends.

Satisfied?

Today in language arts because we have a shorter language arts block we followed a recipe and made homemade salsa. Then we filled out a graphic organizer. Tomorrow we will use that experience to create a writing and video project during center time.

I may get in trouble by the school because I have actually abandoned their reading curriculum. I probably will have to start integrating parts of it if I don't want to be on the administrators bad side. But, it just doesn't fit my students.

[Anonymous]

I think you've changed your narrative. For one thing, it certainly takes more than 2-5 minutes to send the rest of the class to a "safe place"....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I taught a child once who was extremely disruptive--"they" didn't want to put her in an ED class because she would be around awful kids........

So what happened to her?

I can see a parents' point of view on this--if a child has really poor social skills/behavior problems, how could she possibly improve by moving that child into a class surrounded by other children with maybe worse social skills and behavior problems? Of course it makes sense to the rest of us to lump all the bad apples in together and away from our kids but there is kind of an undertone of writing them off.

[Anonymous]

We've got to come up with a solution better than "throw them in a warehouse to rot" or "put kids who're not ready for prime time in a class and disrupt 20-30 other students' learning process."

Problems come up when you have:
1) Parents that are in denial. I suspect this has gone up over the years but I have no proof. Some parents have $$$ and will let everyone know it.
2) Teachers who are scared do begin the process of reporting.
3) Other parents who in the process of complaining manage to shoot their cause in the foot (complaining about "retards," "certain crowds," etc.)
4) Principals who can't be arsed to do anything.
5) IEPs that are poorly-written, wrongly enforced, etc. Upper elementary kids start knowing how to abuse the system too.

Thing is I suspect there were more chemicals in the food/environment in the 60s/70s ... this is the era of the Cuyahoga catching on fire.

Maybe there's more stress in terms of family finances.

The rights of the other students are as important as the rights of a child with behavioral issues.

Another trick I have heard of is disruptive kids getting re-IQ and other tested so they are bounced from group to group.

[Anonymous]

So what happened to her?

She moved away the next year, so I don't really know. I did feel great compassion for her--but she did disrupt the class constantly. I had to watch her constantly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you've changed your narrative. For one thing, it certainly takes more than 2-5 minutes to send the rest of the class to a "safe place"....

It does not take long to resolve a dispute in class (whether it is between the disruptive student and another child or two other students entirely).

It also doesn't take long for me to hit the button and for the principal or counselor to arrive if things are becoming so disruptive that I need help. And it does not take long for students to walk out the classroom door to the elementary commons if needed (again, this does not happen often) and once the student is either calm or removed from my classroom for them to return.

So yes, I would estimate 2-5 minutes would be average. I don't think I've said any differently so far but between you and whoever else who has been pointless nitpicking and accusing I without offering solutions I don't remember if there was a situation that I've mentioned so far that said more. If I did, then perhaps I can clarify it for you. There was one situation that I described earlier where the disruptive student's learning was disrupted for 10-15 minutes, but everyone else resumed with their independent work so their time of disruption was much less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I believe he had an evaluation by the school psychologist - I know he was flagged last year. But I'm sure attempting to sort the behaviors with all of the potential causes would make an accurate diagnosis difficult, especially given his age.

Flagged for what?
I don't see why he can't have an accurate psychiatric diagnosis at this point - there are reliable tests.

Students are "flagged" if there are concerns. He was "flagged" because of his behavior and because of his issues with reading and writing.

I'm not a psychologist, so I'm not sure what kind of testing would be available for a child his age or how reliability would be affected given all of the environmental/medical causes. My understanding is that he is much, much, much worse if he is living with his mom. So environmental factors make a huge difference. Its possible one day down the road he will be diagnosed with something but it hasn't happened yet.