Science #5: Correcting Negative Behaviors

This week in TCH 276, I was in the kindergarten class helping Annie and Kelcey teach a lesson about the four seasons.  Because the kindergarten class was on a field trip last week, the kindergarten class was divided in half this week for two groups to teach.  Our group went into a different room and Samantha took pictures of the student’s work while Becca, Emily, and I took notes on student participation and level of understanding.  However, this group of kids was very excited and was constantly moving around, harming one another, and not listening to the girls teaching.  Eventually, I went and sat directly behind two of the more difficult kids and helped keep them seated.  I did so by continually pointing to where they were supposed to be sitting and saying “no” when they tried to move.  I also had to make two of the kids switch places because they kept bothering and distracting one another.  I couldn’t just sit and watch because I have been in situations in which I was in charge of a challenging group of kids and it was extremely stressful and I had wished that I had help at the time.  Annie and Kelcey had a very difficult group of kids to lead and I was very proud of how they handled them.

The two goals that I set for myself this semester was to learn some Spanish words and gain confidence when working with Spanish speaking students.  Although I did not learn any Spanish words this week, I do think that I gained some confidence.  I stuck with one of the boys for the rest of the time to make sure that he was not hurting anymore of his classmates and that he was listening.  I asked his a lot of questions and engaged him in conversation during his individual work time to make him feel more comfortable.  I quickly realized that he easily understood the English that was being asked of him, so perhaps he was being so difficult because he was bored, he had a bad morning, he isn’t interested in science, or many other reasons.  The reason for his misbehaviors is not what is important.  What is important is that the teacher realizes that some students misbehave and finding out how to change the negative behaviors.  The fact that this student was ELL did not change his response to me correcting his behaviors.  This gives me confidence because I am starting to learn that I can apply a lot of the same classroom management concepts that I have developed with English speaking students with ELL students. 

I have been able to apply these skills that I’m learning in my PDS site this semester.  There are several ELL students in my classroom and we have had a lot of difficulty with two of them having poor behavior.  At first, I always asked my CT how I should approach it because I didn’t want to correct their behavior if the language barrier was the reason that they were misbehaving.   She encouraged me to handle it exactly the same way that we would if it were an English-speaking student, just to explain why their behavior was wrong.  As I have been working with the students more and more, I have learned that they do understand which behaviors are acceptable and which are unacceptable and I have enjoyed seeing them correct their behaviors as they’ve been in school longer.