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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:40 pm Post subject: Student with an attitude problem... |
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I have a student who has been giving me major attitude at my academy. I am not sure what to do with her, so I've decided to just not engage the student, simply only acknowledge her when it's related to academics and that's that. For some reason, she hates my guts.
Recently, during Peppero Day she gave me a box of peppero before class and whispered quickly something about not telling the class. I didn't know it was for me, personally.
So, I gave it out to class. She was mad. Later, I tried to explain through my Korean co-worker, that I didn't expect it was for me, because I am not accustomed to getting stuff from students, and thought Peppero Day is for the kids, not for the teachers. Anyway, I tried to be nice to the girl and gave her some Jeju chocolate to show appreciation, but she was all rude about it. She acted all rude in the next class, so I went off on her and told her she had to stop, because there is no reason to be rude to the teacher. She also has had an attitude with the Korean reading teacher.
I understand she is a child. She is upset that I gave the peppero to the other students. This isn't my culture.
Last edited by Adventurer on Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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bundangbabo
Joined: 01 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject: Re: Student with an attitude problem... |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
I have a student who has been giving me major attitude at my academy. I am not sure what to do with her, so I've decided to just not engage the student, simply only acknowledge her when it's related to academics and that's that. For some reason, she hates my guts.
Recently, during Peppero Day she gave me a box of peppero before class and whispered quickly something about not telling the class. I didn't know it was for me, personally.
So, I gave it out to class. She was mad. Later, I tried to explain through my Korean co-worker, that I didn't expect it was for me, because I am not accustomed to getting stuff from students, and thought Peppero Day is for the kids, not for the teachers. Anyway, I tried to be nice to the girl and gave her some Jeju chocolate to show appreciation, but she was all rude about it. She acted all rude in the next class, so I went off on her and told her she had to stop, because there is no reason to be rude to the teacher. She also has had an attitude with the Korean reading teacher. |
She has got a teenage crush on you. 
Just ignore the attitude and treat her like everyone else, Hard I know. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:46 pm Post subject: Re: Student with an attitude problem... |
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| bundangbabo wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
I have a student who has been giving me major attitude at my academy. I am not sure what to do with her, so I've decided to just not engage the student, simply only acknowledge her when it's related to academics and that's that. For some reason, she hates my guts.
Recently, during Peppero Day she gave me a box of peppero before class and whispered quickly something about not telling the class. I didn't know it was for me, personally.
So, I gave it out to class. She was mad. Later, I tried to explain through my Korean co-worker, that I didn't expect it was for me, because I am not accustomed to getting stuff from students, and thought Peppero Day is for the kids, not for the teachers. Anyway, I tried to be nice to the girl and gave her some Jeju chocolate to show appreciation, but she was all rude about it. She acted all rude in the next class, so I went off on her and told her she had to stop, because there is no reason to be rude to the teacher. She also has had an attitude with the Korean reading teacher. |
She has got a teenage crush on you.
Just ignore the attitude and treat her like everyone else, Hard I know. |
Yeah, some of those attitudes are more love-hate relationships. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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Well, what's the best approach? Plenty of the other kids are fine and nice. When this student was leaving with a friend of hers from another class, she said bye to me, and I just said bye to the nice one, and said nothing to the one who was rude to me. I guess I decided I won't engage the student except to acknowledge her when she has questions, needs to participate in the debates and just treat her fairly. I didn't say bye to her, because I basically wanted her to know that her being rude was just not acceptable with me. It isn't. I don't want an apology from her, just a change in attitude. I understand she is a kid. She also got mad at one of my Korean co-workers, because she used to text him a lot, and he didn't respond so much. She used to be all goody-goody according to my Korean friend. He's been around longer than me, so he has known her longer. What do you with such an attitude?
It's definitely not a love-hate relationship. By the way, she didn't give the reading teacher peppero. Again, I understand, children are children. |
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Kimbop
Joined: 31 Mar 2008
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Seoul'n'Corea
Joined: 06 Nov 2008
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
Well, what's the best approach? Plenty of the other kids are fine and nice. When this student was leaving with a friend of hers from another class, she said bye to me, and I just said bye to the nice one, and said nothing to the one who was rude to me. I guess I decided I won't engage the student except to acknowledge her when she has questions, needs to participate in the debates and just treat her fairly. I didn't say bye to her, because I basically wanted her to know that her being rude was just not acceptable with me. It isn't. I don't want an apology from her, just a change in attitude. I understand she is a kid. She also got mad at one of my Korean co-workers, because she used to text him a lot, and he didn't respond so much. She used to be all goody-goody according to my Korean friend. He's been around longer than me, so he has known her longer. What do you with such an attitude?
It's definitely not a love-hate relationship. By the way, she didn't give the reading teacher peppero. Again, I understand, children are children. |
Make sure you treat all students equally. Some of my students have been poorly treated by other teachers because they have problems focussing in class. This is mostly due to problems at home or medical/physical disabilities that are often undiagnosed because of the shame factor. I have one student with severe autism and another with a possible birth defect who is severely handicapped.
I have at least one or two LD / SLD students in every class. they have usually been victimized by teachers at on point or another.
I try my best to get all students working as best they can. I reward for good behavior, and scold for bad (or no fun stuff). It seems to work. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Seoul'n'Corea wrote: |
| It's definitely not a love-hate relationship. By the way, she didn't give the reading teacher peppero. Again, I understand, children are children. |
Make sure you treat all students equally. Some of my students have been poorly treated by other teachers because they have problems focussing in class. This is mostly due to problems at home or medical/physical disabilities that are often undiagnosed because of the shame factor. I have one student with severe autism and another with a possible birth defect who is severely handicapped.
I have at least one or two LD / SLD students in every class. they have usually been victimized by teachers at on point or another.
I try my best to get all students working as best they can. I reward for good behavior, and scold for bad (or no fun stuff). It seems to work.[/quote]
I treat kids with learning disabilities with plenty of understanding and love. One of the kids who is kind of LD likes me a lot. I am very compassionate, I would like to think. One of the other kids who has some problems seems to be coming along. I did scold the student with the rude behavior. Sometimes, you have to do that. |
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branchsnapper
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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I always find the best thing to do is ignore such stuff and act as robotically teacherish around such students as possible. In Korea that is - the less involved you are here the better.
At my school, one kid just absolutely freaked out in the canteen, flailing his arms and gibbering wildly for a long time next to the lady dishing out soup. It seems he had to wait for too long in the line. Now THAT'S an attitude problem..... |
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EzeWong
Joined: 26 Mar 2008
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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I too have some students that sometimes act really rude and ruffle my feathers.
Children they don't understand long term consequences. Being rude to her back... I don't think she's gonna get the point. It's only going to reinforce her to be even ruder.
In the case of this girl, I can understand her feelings. She felt like she explicitly told you not to tell the class... but then you went ahead and did just that. She's a kid and won't be understanding that you didn't comprehend what she asked. So she feels like you did this out spite her on purpose.
Just forget it, Treat her like all the other students and ignore it.
Rude students get to me too but being rude to her isn't going to make her stop. It's a vicious cycle. She's rude to you, you're rude to her, she's going to get more rude etc.
The only way she's going to learn, is forgeting about it. If she carry's on being rude and you don't reciprocate she knows that her being rude isn't getting what she wants.
She's being rude to you because she wants something out of you, it's her method for eliciting a sorry, or attention, or whatever. Ignore it long enough and she'll switch her strategy. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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| EzeWong wrote: |
I too have some students that sometimes act really rude and ruffle my feathers.
Children they don't understand long term consequences. Being rude to her back... I don't think she's gonna get the point. It's only going to reinforce her to be even ruder.
In the case of this girl, I can understand her feelings. She felt like she explicitly told you not to tell the class... but then you went ahead and did just that. She's a kid and won't be understanding that you didn't comprehend what she asked. So she feels like you did this out spite her on purpose.
Just forget it, Treat her like all the other students and ignore it.
Rude students get to me too but being rude to her isn't going to make her stop. It's a vicious cycle. She's rude to you, you're rude to her, she's going to get more rude etc.
The only way she's going to learn, is forgeting about it. If she carry's on being rude and you don't reciprocate she knows that her being rude isn't getting what she wants.
She's being rude to you because she wants something out of you, it's her method for eliciting a sorry, or attention, or whatever. Ignore it long enough and she'll switch her strategy. |
I had thought she meant that I should not tell the class she was giving the peppero to me to give to them. I didn't know it was a gift for me specifically. I thought it was meant for the class. I don't think you can allow a student to be rude to you. You have to then be stern and put breaks on it otherwise the behavior will continue. You have to show the student you mean business, and you won't tolerate such behavior. I tried the nice approach and explaining to her I didn't understand it was a gift from her, and I even actually was going to give her chocolate, but she rudely refused it. I don't think you can simply ignore a student in class when the student acts openly rude to you, now do you? It happens, I know, she misunderstood or maybe is going through puberty. I am sure she is a good child underneath it all.
I am not trying to take it personally, because I am the adult. However, I am still worthy of respect as the teacher, and I mean well. I would like her to learn from this, but I know that may be expecting too much. Hopefully, one of her friends talked to her about her behavior, because her friends are more than fine with me in class. I am actually very good to my students and try to be fair, but I am not going to tolerate disrespect. She stoppd her rudeness when I snapped at her in class in front of the others. I didn't lose my cool. I simply told her I wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior. |
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Draz
Joined: 27 Jun 2007
Location: Land of Morning Clam
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:27 pm Post subject: |
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| branchsnapper wrote: |
| I always find the best thing to do is ignore such stuff and act as robotically teacherish around such students as possible. |
I was really fuzzy-headed all week and couldn't act any other way than blandly zombie-ish... I thought some of the rude classes were being better this week, but don't really want to trust my judgment. (Head no worky.) |
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Kimchieluver
Joined: 02 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:39 am Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
Well, what's the best approach? Plenty of the other kids are fine and nice. When this student was leaving with a friend of hers from another class, she said bye to me, and I just said bye to the nice one, and said nothing to the one who was rude to me. I guess I decided I won't engage the student except to acknowledge her when she has questions, needs to participate in the debates and just treat her fairly. I didn't say bye to her, because I basically wanted her to know that her being rude was just not acceptable with me. It isn't. I don't want an apology from her, just a change in attitude. I understand she is a kid. She also got mad at one of my Korean co-workers, because she used to text him a lot, and he didn't respond so much. She used to be all goody-goody according to my Korean friend. He's been around longer than me, so he has known her longer. What do you with such an attitude?
It's definitely not a love-hate relationship. By the way, she didn't give the reading teacher peppero. Again, I understand, children are children. |
I have worked at 4 all girls middles schools. I have experience with this
First, it was your mistake. You tried your best to reconcile. However, how would you feel if you gave someone "special" a gift and they then gave it out to everybody in the class? So man up and admit it was your mistake by not knowing the culture of Peppero Day.
Second, female students in Korea are much more sensitive than their male counterparts. You can bring a boy to tears and the next day he will have forgotten all about it. You can simply close a novel and tell a girl to do her worksheet and she will hold a grudge for days or even weeks.
Third, don't lower yourself to her level by being rude back. Cut her a fresh slate every class. Keep the class dynamics in the class room. If she is rude, don't show any emotion or reciprocate, instead reform it and ask her not to be rude. If she does well, reward her just like you would any student.
Fourth, outside of class try to make small talk. You can do nice gestures that aren't directly linked to her but yet intended for her. For example, if her friends are all sitting around during break, give one of her friends a bag of ramen, potato chips etc .. and tell them them to share.
Fifth, after a while and the attitude persist, if you feel the need to confront her, do it when she is alone. Don't say your sorry again, but tell her you think she has good potential and would like to see her happier in class. If you can't convey this due to the language barrier, have a Korean teacher do it.
Trust me, I have been dealing with these little princesses for 7 years now. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:21 am Post subject: |
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| Kimchieluver wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
Well, what's the best approach? Plenty of the other kids are fine and nice. When this student was leaving with a friend of hers from another class, she said bye to me, and I just said bye to the nice one, and said nothing to the one who was rude to me. I guess I decided I won't engage the student except to acknowledge her when she has questions, needs to participate in the debates and just treat her fairly. I didn't say bye to her, because I basically wanted her to know that her being rude was just not acceptable with me. It isn't. I don't want an apology from her, just a change in attitude. I understand she is a kid. She also got mad at one of my Korean co-workers, because she used to text him a lot, and he didn't respond so much. She used to be all goody-goody according to my Korean friend. He's been around longer than me, so he has known her longer. What do you with such an attitude?
It's definitely not a love-hate relationship. By the way, she didn't give the reading teacher peppero. Again, I understand, children are children. |
I have worked at 4 all girls middles schools. I have experience with this
First, it was your mistake. You tried your best to reconcile. However, how would you feel if you gave someone "special" a gift and they then gave it out to everybody in the class? So man up and admit it was your mistake by not knowing the culture of Peppero Day.
Second, female students in Korea are much more sensitive than their male counterparts. You can bring a boy to tears and the next day he will have forgotten all about it. You can simply close a novel and tell a girl to do her worksheet and she will hold a grudge for days or even weeks.
Third, don't lower yourself to her level by being rude back. Cut her a fresh slate every class. Keep the class dynamics in the class room. If she is rude, don't show any emotion or reciprocate, instead reform it and ask her not to be rude. If she does well, reward her just like you would any student.
Fourth, outside of class try to make small talk. You can do nice gestures that aren't directly linked to her but yet intended for her. For example, if her friends are all sitting around during break, give one of her friends a bag of ramen, potato chips etc .. and tell them them to share.
Fifth, after a while and the attitude persist, if you feel the need to confront her, do it when she is alone. Don't say your sorry again, but tell her you think she has good potential and would like to see her happier in class. If you can't convey this due to the language barrier, have a Korean teacher do it.
Trust me, I have been dealing with these little princesses for 7 years now. |
Actually, I realized it was a matter of a cultural misunderstanding. However, the student didn't give the reading teacher peppero. She was ticked off at him. Who knows, maybe she was trying to make him jealous by giving me and the other teacher peppero. I have no clue.
The student didn't say not to give the stuff out to the kids. I didn't assume it was a gift for me, because I didn't know peppero is also given to the teachers in general, and she whispered basically and spoke to me quickly and gave it to me, and I didn't get why she gave it to me. I thought it was something for the kids. I did try to explain that to the student and talk to her and all she would do was be rude to me.
I am not sure what you propose would work though you say to trust you.
The kid acts like I am an axe murderer over something trivial. I disagree that a teacher should simply let a student disrespect him in front of others in class. A teacher needs to call a student on it, not be a doormat. I had to do that. Are you suggesting a teacher should simply let that go.
She stopped being rude when I told her in a stern tone to cut it out.
Are you telling me you would accept that in your classroom? If this were a public school, not a hagwon, I probably would have done that earlier.
I can't use a Korean teacher to convey anything to her. She has a major attitude. I already tried having the Korean teacher explain this misunderstanding. Instead, all she did was supposedly say horrible things about me to him, so I actually had the Korean teacher inquire as to why she was mad, and I tried to show some sensitivity. I even bought the kid Jeju chocolate to be kind, and she said in a vicious, rude manner that she didn't want it.
Some poster said to ignore the student, and that is appropriate. Ignoring a student is not rude behavior. It's only rude if you don't acknowledge the student when the student is asking a question or what have you.
Frankly, this student has been vicious. What do you do with a student who has been viciously rude. Again, I am the adult, she is the child.
I still want to be respected, not disrespected. I didn't kill anyone.
Yet, I understand children are sometimes not so broad-minded. |
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John_ESL_White
Joined: 12 Nov 2008
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| Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:57 am Post subject: |
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How old are you? I only ask because you keep saying you are the adult and I'd like to know how long you've been an adult. No slight intended.
They are just kids. You gave out candy she gave to you in the same class. That was rude, even in the adult world- it would be rude.
Imagine, your friend gives you season tickets to _____ stadium to see the ________ team, while at the bar. You announce to all your other friends there (who are not close to the giver) that you are going to share the tickets with them. Your friend would probably feel slighted.
It would be better to thank your friend and then go home, call some other freinds and invite them to the games.
When a kid gives you candy, give it to the next class.Do not give it to the class the kid is in. That's what I do anyway.
Personally, even if I made that mistake, I would not be sweating it. It's a kid, in a hagwon, who doesn't like you at the moment. No big deal.
If she's rude, use negative reinforcement. When she's not rude, use positive reinforcement. Treat them all the same though. They pick up on favoritism in a flash.
And, do some research. Kids act out for different reasons in learning settings. Maybe she is bored because the material is too easy..OR..maybe your lessons are too hard for her and she is intimidated...etc.... Just because a kid is being a brat doesn't mean the kid is a brat. You'd be surprised at how teaching the right level of material can affect the behavior of a class.... |
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EzeWong
Joined: 26 Mar 2008
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:33 am Post subject: |
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As I was in the shower,
I thougth for a moment.... Do we really know why she's upset?
"Thinking about this hard, and in the shower... I came to this Eureka moment. "
She probably told you not to give it to the class for a reason... class politics maybe? Who knows. But I think it would help to understand or give some empathy to why she's so upset...
I remember in school being angry at a teacher for falsely accusing me of stealing markers. The teacher had no idea though that another student set me up... But I placed the blame on the teacher because as a kid I figured the adult should know better. She might be in that same position where she thinks "the adult should know better".
Obviously your attempts at making peace with her have failed because she's so resistant. But maybe if you understand why first it might help... |
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