What follows is a reflection posting I had to complete for my grad school class. It's not very well-written but I figured I'd post it on here anyway since it's been a while since my last post.
Today I tried a new technique with one of my students that seemed to work and that I hope will have a positive impact on his behavior in the coming days and weeks.
There is one male student, DM, in my first period who engages almost daily in flirtatious behavior with a female student, YC. The students do not sit one another but in my class there is a fair amount of movement involved, and DM is usually able to do something to bother YC. It's usually something along the lines of taking her book or pencil and playfully refusing to give it back. YC will then raise her hand and say, "DM has my . Tell him to give it back."
Today, during independent work time, YC raised her hand. I walk over, and, sure enough, she says, "DM won't give me back my sweater." I looked at DM. He had been wearing this sweater (actually, it's a sweatshirt, but they always call it a sweater, which baffles me) all period. Wearily, I asked DM if the sweater belonged to YC. He of course denied it. It was at this point that I gave him my new talk. It went something like this:
Me: DM, how old are you?
DM: 17 (as soon as he says this, he begins to look guilty. DM is in 10th grade).
Me: YC, how old are you?
YC: 15.
Me: Now, almost every day, DM, you take something that belongs to YC and then I end up moderating. Do you realize how much time this wastes? Do you realize how childish you are acting?
DM: (looks guilty and nods)
Me: You're 17 years old. You are almost a fully-grown man. You should be treating YC like a lady and resolving conflicts on your own instead of having me get involved every day. There's no reason that I should be resolving such childish conflicts between two people who are on the brink of adulthood. I'm not going to deal with these things anymore. Find a way to get over this without disrupting the learning environment.
They seemed responsive. I have no idea if it will work long-term, but they actually did their work for today. The key seemed to be shaming DM into doing the right thing based on the fact that he is 17 and behaving like a small child. It's probably not by the book, but, well.... we'll see what happens tomorrow.
