Challenging Student Behaviors and Their Causes

This week I have been learning about challenging behaviors my students may have and how to best address them. Sometimes the cause is going on in your classroom and sometimes it is you. You, as the teacher, are the one who models what it means to act. You are the one who models what respect is, the appropriate volume for speaking, or what it means to be prepared for class. Hamlett (2018) wrote out a list of actions we as teachers sometimes do that could cause challenging behaviors in our students. The list includes:

• ·         Not talking to the student but rather talking over him or her
• ·         Poor listening skills (teacher not listening to student explanation)
• ·         Rushing ahead with a given concept without giving the student enough time to process the information
• ·         Negative body language and comments
• ·         An unorganized classroom (p. 2-3)

When we as teachers feel our classroom management is out of control, we can first look at what we are doing to keep the order and correct our mistakes. After this we can look at the student and find what the causes for their struggles are.