My Teaching Stories

Slice of Teaching, Free Image CC

A moment that I deem "indelible" in my teaching career.

This is a "Slice of Life" or "Slice of my Career" post. Maybe you can learn from it. Maybe you won't, but here it is for you to share.

It was my 3rd year of teaching.

I was working as a special education teacher within learning and emotional support as a co-teacher for 6th graders. One of my students with severe emotional needs and minor learning needs butted heads with me throughout the year. It was one of those student-teacher “oil and water” relationships that developed throughout the year. It seemed like in her mind I was a monster for working with her on developing a plan to do her homework, to apologize to her other teacher for not being honest to her, for asking to study with her for an upcoming test during their “resource” period and so on. As a special education teacher there are always a few students who, when the phone rings, you usually know it’s about them. Unfortunately, parent involvement was not there due to circumstances beyond their control. Nevertheless, I was determined to work with this student and push forward. In the one class I co-taught in that this student was in, the teacher and I set a goal to get this student to participate by responding to a prompt/question by writing on the dry erase board (something this teacher asked all students to do and most students love to).

Source: Wikimedia Commons

This student’s handwriting was decent and it seemed like just pure opposition to our requests for her to participate in this way, she refused to write on the board. I remember us letting it go for a while (a week or two) and then coming back to her only to be met with more refusal. I was certain it was because I was in the room and this was one way to grab control. As the year went on, I still worked with her as if this refusal behavior wasn’t happening.

Are some students just oppositional just to be oppositional?

Anyway, the end of the year rolled around and we walked the group of students up to the busses on the last day of school to send them off. I walked back to my room and the first thing I saw in big writing across my whole whiteboard was a note from this student about how thankful she was for having me as a teacher, working with her to pass the year and apologizing for behaving the way that she did. This stood out to me in several ways; 1. She wrote on the whiteboard (and without being asked!) 2. She was aware of my perseverance to help her despite her behavior. 3. All it takes is one act for me to look back on a student in a different way - and as a learning experience rather than as a “difficult student”. I still don’t know why she refused to write on the board or why she waited to leave that note on the board on the last day of school. Certainly, not all students who give you a difficult time will have a moment like this (in fact many students who have been difficult for me have not), but what are you doing to set up moments like this? I felt like throwing in the towel with this one and giving more of my attention and focus to students who would meet me halfway, but there are some students who you know they are getting in the way of themselves and just need that extra deep breath before responding to them.

Who is your student who refuses to write on whiteboard?