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You may have many students who have chronic problems with their behavior and attitude at school. Fortunately, we have many awesome interventions to turnaround bad behavior and even worse attitudes.
Some of our favorite interventions for sour attitudes and problem behavior, are shown below. Find hundreds more at our web site.
Me? Flunk English? That's Unpossible!
Just write this sentence on the board, then let the students discuss it: "WiLl YOu RealY NevER ned a diPlOmA?" You may also repeat this exercise with this sentence: "Me? Flunk English? That's unpossible!" The second sentence is stolen from the cartoon show, "The Simpsons"; ask your students to create other sentences like the two shown above. Also, you can ask your students to imagine how signs might be read by someone who hasn't learned to read very well. For example, ask them to imagine signs at the airport you better be able to read. They will devise many funny but provocative scenarios.
Who is the Problem Here?
Make a list of problems that adults can have at work and in the community, such as "Mr. Frank is frequently late to work. Mr. Frank is angry at the boss for docking him pay for the time he's late, saying it is the boss's fault he loses money." Ask your students to determine who is accountable for the problem. Students will indicate that Mr. Frank is accountable. After the students determine adults are accountable in each scenario, present them with a second list of scenarios. This list should be exactly the same as the first list, but substitute youngsters for adults in each situation. Next, ask your group members to determine accountability. It may make for an interesting discussion, and provoke some new thinking.
Figure This
Students who finish school earn about $329,000 more than drop-outs. Have your students calculate how much they are earning of that $329,000 per year they have left in school--and per month, per week, per hour, per minute. Have students run their fingers through $329,000 in play money. All those dollars may help to sweeten all those bad attitudes just a little bit.
10,000 Ways School Builds You Up
Have students list all the things they wish to do in their lives, then have them consider how many of these activities require school. Students may be amazed that activities from driving to a concert, to building a house, to climbing a mountain, will be harder or even impossible without education.
10,000 More Ways School Can Build You Up: Follow-up Intervention
For this intervention, use the list of activities that students say that they want to do (from the strategy shown above).
Write those activities on the board then ask the group:
"Does Finishing School Help You Get It" or "Does Quitting School Help You Get It?" You won't need to say much. The group will have already figured out that quitting school isn't very useful to reach the goals they say they want.
Ready or Not, Here Life Comes
Some students are very negative about school because they consider it to be a waste. Here is a fun intervention to show students that education may be essential. Have students write down the types of problems that an adult might have to deal with during one really bad day, then have them determine how many of these activities use skills learned in school. Your group will notice that all/most of the problems in a really bad adult day may require education. Include problems like the refrigerator is a bit warm, the car seems to slide for some reason on the wet road, and the bank says that your checking account is overdrawn.
Drop-Outs Needed
Reserve this intervention for older, very sour teens who are at risk of dropping out soon. Use the intervention with care and kindness; do not use with fragile kids. If you are not sure that you can safely and properly use this device, then don't use it. Ask the student to find all the Help Wanted ads that specify "Drop-Out Needed." This tough intervention can be an eye-opener that shows that maybe school isn't just a waste, as the student may believe.
Classroom Management Quiz: What Do You Know About Controlling Out of Control Students?
The top question we get at our busy Live Expert Help area of our web site where we answer youth professionals' queries on almost any topic, is "How do I get kids'especially hard-to-manage ones-- to behave?" Teachers and other educators are especially troubled that their training has not even begun to prepare them to manage the severe misbehavior that they see more and more every year. But, we hear from youth professionals and paraprofessionals from all disciplines, that their training has not "kept up" with the changes in the kids. Those of you in the trenches consistently tell us your training prepared you to work with Beaver Cleaver, but Beavis and Butthead continue to show up.
Here at Youth Change, we have spent the last 13 years attempting to prepare youth professionals for Beavis and Butthead--or whoever is assigned to your classroom or case load. Through our general session, on-site and video classes, we attempt to update youth professionals' skills to fit contemporary youth. This internet magazine is part of that effort, and we want to see how we'and you-- are doing. So, get ready, here is a pop quiz to see if you have been paying attention to this ezine the past couple years. Let's find out if you have the updated skills youth professionals need to best work with contemporary
youth.
This is not an open book quiz so you can't go and try to find the information somewhere. When that fist is heading towards your face, you will need these answers ready-to-go, so let's simulate some of the surprise and pressure you face every day, and have you take this quiz right now. To maximize the pressure, allow yourself just 3 minutes. To make this quiz work best, we want you to feel some of the stress and pressure you face each day, and see if the information you need, will be there when you need it.
1. Often, discipline doesn't seem to work. What are the 3 areas that you must teach before discipline can work?
2. Counselors have a special mental health term to describe your most severely misbehaved kid. You must work with this child differently than all others. Name the term and one way you must work differently. Hint: This answer is all over our web site and workshops. Do you know it?
3. What are the only 3 ways kids can respond to an adult direction, and which is the only one that works? Hint: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink...
4. If you work in a school setting, you may see a lot of sour, negative attitudes. One way to begin to chip away at the attitudes is to show students the importance of school. So, how much more does a high school grad earn than a dropout in their lifetime? Hint: Look at the posters on our web site for the answer. It's a 6 digit number.
5. School shootings are among the scariest possibilities that school staff face. Three types of kids may be at highest risk of such serious behavior and must be offered the highest degree of supervision. Remembering this information is critical. Name the 3 types of kids. Hint: Our "Must Know Violence Prevention" article in our Solution Center at our site delivers the answer.
6. Teachers often want ways to provide conflict resolution but we offer something better. Name it.
7. Name the youngster that you must never give second chances to, and describe why it could be dangerous. Hint: See Question
#2.
If you don't know the answers, that may give you one explanation for why your classroom or group poses serious management problems. Your training didn't give you real-world methods for today's youth. The answers are below, but visit our site for details and to update your skills to fit contemporary students. Working with difficult students doesn't have to be so difficult with our updated answers:
1. Skills, motivation and attitude
2. Conduct disorder
3. Be oppositional, capitulate or comply (acceptance)
4. Get the answer (and some great interventions) by looking at awesome motivation posters at our website.
5. Conduct disorder, thought disorder, extreme agitated depressed
6. Conflict prevention
7. Conduct disorder-- read our "Must Know Violence Prevention" article at our site to find out why this is so very dangerous-- a short sentence can't do justice to this serious safety issue.
Our staff training workshop can come to your school and provide all the answers you need. Get free sample materials, 100s of free, dynamic interventions, and our free Problem Student Problem-Solver magazine at our site. Plus, you can find your solution to your worst student problems. We also have surprisingly different, must-see posters, books, instant ebooks, audio books, workshops and free Live Expert Help. For further information on this article or Youth Change's top-rated resources, or call us at the number below. |
| Author: Ruth Wells, M.S. |
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Author Bio:
Get much more information on this topic at www.youthchg.com and theclassroommanagementsite.com. See hundreds more of innovative, problem-stopping interventions at the Youth Change web site. Ruth Wells MS is the director of Youth Change. Ruth is the author of dozens of books including the popular Temper and Tantrum Tamers, Turn On the Turned-Off Student, Last Chance School Success Guide and Maximum-Strength Motivation-Makers. She annually trains hundreds of teachers, counselors and youth professionals in staff development workshops, conferences, seminars and in-service throughout the country. Get free samples and see 100s more of her problem-stopping interventions at Youth Change's web site. Ruth is the author of dozens of books and ebooks, and conducts professional development workshops. Please visit us at our website at www.youthchg.com or feel free to call us at 1-800-545-5736. |
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