"Rebels in Our Classrooms":A Reflective Classroom Teacher 11

There are going to be rebels in our classrooms. Not many, but a few. They don't always know what they are against but are a negative force to be dealt with. These students truly believe that they are never understood. Each day brings a new and unique tragedy into their lives. They need to spend a considerable part of each day in a counselor's office complaining about teachers, parents, friends, siblings, community, rumors, boy friends and girl friends, cars and warm soda. Through their dress or their behavior they draw attention to themselves and then complain when their peers look at them as being different. A fight after school is a social event and they can spend the better part of a week going over the details of the outcome. They, on average, do not attend school on a regular schedule and often sleep in class when they are there, rarely hand in an assignment and become angry with you because of their failures. They do their best to make life miserable for everyone. And one day, we will have their children in our class. If we seem to be over critical, it is out of frustration for not being able to affect the lives of these students as often as we believe we should. What is achieved in the classroom during the day is often lost in the negativism of a fractured and dysfunctional family life.
Do not despair, the vast majority of our students are conformists and understand the meaning of goals and the accepted means of achieving them. Most of the time, these students think before they act and are willing to face the consequences of a poor choice. These children listen in class most of the time. All children will have doubts about the world they are growing up in and wonder what they can do to make it a better place. They will worry about being good enough at anything. Their hearts are often broken more times than they can count by events that we, as adults, would not give a second thought. Their confidence can be shattered by a single word or look. They despair at times but they do not surrender. They seek solutions. They are good people from good families and they are the vast majority.
However, you and I do not get paid to teach this conformist, the easy child. That child, with the proper instruction, can often find their own way, with limited interaction. For this child, we are more the facilitator than teacher; more mentor that instructor. It takes a great deal of talent to know when to let go and when to reel in the line. That is a must trait for any effective teacher.