Jr. high/middle school teachers, what do you do when a student disrupts the learning of others?

Be very reasonable. Antagonizing the student is the kiss of death. Keep the lines of communications open with their parents. You know who the kids are who will need more parent maintenance than others.

Keep records. Don't just hand his work back to him. Show it to him and keep it. All of it. Note when he or she disrupts, what you did to redirect, and what time it was.

For some students, I kept a running tab.

Larry 2/29/09

8:00 talking during instruction

8:05 out of seat; still hasn't started assignment so I relocated him next to my desk.

8:10 threw a piece of paper; no heading on his paper yet. I asked him what the assignment was. He demonstrated that he understood the assignment and began to work.

8:20 wanted to go to restroom. I refused. He started to write, then began to twist around in his seat.

8:20 talking; looking around at the other kids. When I asked him what he should be doing, he turned around and went to work.

This was an extreme case, but it happened, and I kept all his work in a folder. Then I scheduled a meeting with his parents, the principal and myself.

At the meeting, his father was rather rude. He was upset at the teacher, at the principal, anybody except his child or himself. The principal listened patiently and politely, and so did I. When the dad finally ran out of steam, I pulled out his pitiful classwork. I presented it to his dad, who instantly felt like a fool for defending his son so adamantly. I immediately communicated my opinion of his son's sharp mental capacities. I told the father, "I need your help. Do you have any suggestions that will help me communicate to your son how important this work is? Can you tell me what the other teachers did last year that helped him succeed? I have tried everything. This is a copy of your son's disruptions in class last Wednesday. I know you can imagine how hard it is for the other students to concentrate when there is so much going on. I'm having complaints from other parents who say their child's grades are being affected by his disruptions. I love his quick wit and his wonderful sense of humor, but there's a time and a place for fun and my classroom can't be an amusement park. He's always so polite and so helpful, and just he other day I saw him helping old Mrs. Smith carry some books down the hall. He's a nice kid. I wish all my students had a father like you. Do you think you can help me?"

Dad was my new best friend and the Principal had a whole new respect for me after that day.

Other times I'd fill out the detention slip, walk over to a kid who was off track, and show it to him. Then I'd ask him if I really needed to turn it in, or if he could just get to work instead? That was a winner too.

Good luck!

To deal effectively with this you need the support of the office. What kind of discipline does the school support? I've worked in schools where they had effectively no support, to schools where there was a lot of support. You have to work in the context that is there.

When I was younger I believed that I could reach out and deal with even the most disruptive students. Sure, that can be done, usually -- if there's only one or two, but then you run into a class with a dozen!

But what was more important that I learned is how expensive even one disruptive student is the learning process, and how much such disruption impairs the learning of everyone in the class. When the disruptor(s) is not responding to whatever you can afford to do in the classroom at the time (and that changes day-to-day, subject-to-subject)-- have that person pulled from the class. You do not have the right as a teacher to impair the learning experience of all the other students in the class for any significant length of time in order to deal with disruptive influences.

* * *

There are many tactics for dealing with disruptions -- earning the respect of students is critical. But every school, every year, every class and every day is different. You have to work within the context that you have. Take the time to look at teaching habits and tactics that work in your school.

All tactics work in some places and times and not in others. Of course detention works -- especially when the detention locations have the proper psychology. But they don't work if they are just dumps where slackers and disrupters feed off each other.

I have taught in the middle school classroom and I find the most important thing to do is build respect with the students. If the students don't respect you as a teacher, they are going to act out and not listen. However, if they do respect you and feel you genuinely care about them, they are much more likely to respond.

Besides that I use peer pressure. For example if I am giving a lesson or notes or something and a student is disrupting I will start a timer until the room is quiet again. That time is paid at the end of class. However they have to accrue a certain amount of time before it has to be paid. I also try to keep things positive by providing rewards and incentives for good behavior. If a student is repeatedly disruptive and does not respond to my attempts, I call in the parents and we work out a plan together.

I hope this helps!

I teach middle school. When a student is disrupting my class, they are first given a warning, as in, "Alex, this is your warning." If the behavior continues, I'll ask the student to step outside. The key here is not to leave them alone in the hall for very long, especially if I sent more than one student. I then make sure the class has something to work on independently, and go talk to the 'trouble maker.' I'll ask why I asked them to step outside, then I'll say something about how they can't disrupt their learning or the learning of others, or my ability to teach. I'll give a clear consequence for if the behavior occurs again, usually being sent to the principal's office.

I find that this system works pretty well for my kids. I work at a small private school, I imagine this may be more difficult at a larger public school.

I'm a student teacher right now. My mentor teacher would send a disruptive student out of the room. He would usually have that student write "I will not disrupt class" or something like that over and over. Or he might have the student write a letter about his or her behavior.

I created a worksheet for students to fill out when I send them out of the room. I called it the "Instructional Comprehension Form." It has them write down the definition of a word of my choosing from the dictionary. When I give it out, I choose a word that relates to something in my instructions that the student seems not to understand. For example, "quietly" or "appropriate." Then they explain why they think I chose that work, how their behavior is negatively impacting the class, and what they think they should do to change that behavior.

had a teacher like this too, he would often tell the disruptive student(s) to leave and come back next year when they were ready to learn, was pretty effective most of the time

I am a student and I'm saying that you can't really do a lot because detention doesn't work. You could take away class points. That might work.

I would first of all, acknowledge the three chances that they have tossed in the wind and take away any and all privileges.

send him home, happened to me and a friend once, learned a big lesson, but friend just never went back and lost out on almost everything