Students Misbehavior in Schools - Research Paper Example

Name: Professor: Course: Date: Student’s misbehavior in schools SECTION 1 Student’s misbehavior is a common vice in all learning institution. Research is still on going on whether means and ways can be found of controlling the spread of this kind of behavior. This kind of behavior clearly visible in kindergarten schools where students disrespect their teachers and heading out to perform actions not allowed by their teachers. To see such actions at such an early age one might interpret it as entirely the parents fault as most children are in the hands of their parents before teachers take over as their caretakers. As earlier stated, research on this issue is still ongoing and purposely shifting all blame will not be solving the problem. In school, learning is the main purpose. Learning is a broad term which could mean ways of learning and acquiring observable and expected behavior for use in the society. Thus, the work of a teacher is to ensure students understand the need to avoiding all forms of misbehaviors and the effects of such actions that are the repercussions. Learners come to school with different characters and interact with people they do not know. Teacher’s role is to make this transmission as peaceful as possible. Misbehavior if not controlled and monitored leads to development of individuals who are not fully grown in the education sector. This means that, the value of education cannot be seen in such learners, and the community thus expects remarkably little out come from such individuals. The role of education is producing outstanding individuals who can contribute or relate to their society well and use the knowledge gained to benefit the community. Misbehavior in schools causes one to miss the essence of such qualities taught in school not necessarily directly but also indirectly. SECTION 2 This being an issue of considerable concern in school teachers received several questionnaires with the desire to find out the common causes, types and remedies of misbehavior in behavior. The results varied. Misbehavior noted exceeded one kind of common action, and neither was it caused by one issue. Some of the causes for student misbehavior started with unfulfilled needs from homes, and the students extended this to classrooms. SECTION 3 To determine the form of behavior the data was collected from teachers since the research was geared toward behavior in schools. Thus, teachers and school administrators were the target population. Student misbehavior being a major issue affecting education, this research aimed at finding ways of lowering or completely doing away with this vice. To collect the data questions were distributed to teachers in various schools. The questionnaires were descriptive with some of the interview questions in question answer format and others with multiple choice questions. The survey only captured a sample of the population since I conducted it in different institutions and using the whole sample group consumed a lot of time. SECTION 4 The data collected from the survey was for teachers and school administrators and focused on children misbehaviors in school. Thus to analyze and confirm the data the results from this survey were compared with results of survey done on children misbehaviors at home. This will eventually give a clear understanding of child behavior and whether it varies from home to school. These data collected will be presented on bar graphs so as to determine which among the stated form of behavior was rampant. The probable solutions provided by the teachers and those from other research will then be analyzed to determine which one was more effective. SECTION 5 The major form of misbehavior in elementary school was being disrespectful. The young children would not automatically listen to the instructions given by their teachers and would prefer engaging themselves in their own activities which they considered more appealing. Disrespectful children do so either because they become disinterested with whichever activity going on in class or taking instructions is difficult for them. The idea of seeking attention might not necessarily work for younger children because at that age even though they might know how to do that, many young children are often unaware of the consciousness of that action to engage fully into it. Thus, any time a teacher has noticed a student misbehaving they should act upon it to prevent further destruction, because all they are doing is trying to get what they want and at times the need could be easy to entertain. Teachers need to exercise extra care when dealing with elementary school children because they are still developing and growing and learning to understand that there is more to the world than just them. Other forms of misbehavior for the same group from the teacher survey were verbal and physical fights, bullying and tardiness. Absenteeism for this group of children was almost non-existent as their parents controlled their school attendance. The teachers of these schools gave possible reasons as to why they felt the students misbehave. Majority suggested peer pressure and seeking attention. If narrowed down disrespect in schools majorly discussed in the survey involved, not listening to the teachers, failure to complete home work on time, not willing to share and actively participate with others, verbal and physical fights though, not particularly common, and bullying. This discussion will explain some reasons for misbehavior as it is crucial to keep in mind that not all forms of misbehavior portray a rude child, others have needs and when taken care of the misdeed stops. Teachers should be aware that their roles as teachers demand that they handle classroom issues with some level of maturity and professionalism. Thus to be able to solve the issue of misbehavior the first step is to understand the cause of this bad behavior. The researchers in this field explained several issues. If a teacher understands why a student is misbehaving they can equally respond maturely and help solve the issue rather than getting irritated and acting irrationally. Sheila Milnes also clarifies this by saying that if one learns why children misbehave; one will be able to find new ways of solving the problem (Milnes, 2004). A student might misbehave as they feel like they do not belong, thus engage in attention seeking behavior to find out if they still be accepted. It therefore, becomes necessary to show the children that the love still exists. In a classroom situation might be overwhelmed and find this hard to do. A simple mention of their names might suffice in this case. Just letting the students know that the teacher knows them. Another reason for student misbehavior could be to gain attention. A teacher needs to understand the child’s perspective is that receiving attention means you are loved. A teacher’s responsibility is to ensure a balanced classroom whereby, they divide their attention equally among the students to prevent misbehavior caused by this kind of emotion. A step forward might involve making sure that they acknowledge the student when they behave well, not to wait till they misbehave for them to get recognition. Another reason for children misbehavior is when they feel inadequate or lack confidence. This might make the children act out when asked to perform a new task or even be scared to perform when asked by the teacher to do something in class. This fear to a teacher who is unaware might appear like misbehavior and not willing to do the assigned work. A teacher should be observant to notice such traits in children and also encourage them and tell them that everyone makes mistakes and people learn from their mistakes. Children would misbehave when they are unwell. This could be headache, lack of sleep, being too full of eating a lot which also causes discomfort, lack of enough sleep, the need to use the bathroom. The teacher thus has the ultimate opportunity and task to notice such issues and find ways of helping students. It is advisable to be careful not to punish a student for misbehavior when their only fault was to be sick. Such an action can make a student be withdrawn, not enjoy school and the teacher too. Thus, any suspicion by the teacher that a student is misbehaving the teacher should indulge with the child and try finding out if the cause is sickness. Children also misbehave when they feel upset. This can be caused by anything. Change in climate, divorce, moving to a new house, a friend moving to another city all these can make a child upset. To aid such a situation a teacher should make a point of inquiring from students how they are fairing on at the beginning of each new day if possible. This tells the child that there is someone who is listening thus they open up and talk about issues bothering them, which in turn makes them less angry. Counteracting issues of anger beforehand makes it easy for a teacher to prevent cases of misbehavior. To feel unloved is also another cause of children misbehavior in school. Teachers do this either consciously or unconsciously. Whichever of the two is the case this should be toned down. Students come to class to gain knowledge from the teacher, or be directed on how to achieve knowledge which they believe can only be acquired in schools. A teacher thus becomes a second parent, but when teachers decide to give particular attention to other students at the expense of the others this could be detrimental and affect the development of the neglected or unloved child. This child will create a tendency to seek attention by any means possible. This could involve vandalism, bullying, physical and verbal fighting. This has also been known to be the main source of academic failure in schools. Such students neglect their studies and others even make attempts of committing suicide or engaging in violent and illegal activities outside the school, a sure path way to juvenile detention. A teacher’s role in school is to maintain order and ensure fair treatment of all the children. The feeling of discouragement is also a cause for misbehavior. In a classroom situation, whereby a student answers a question wrongly and instead of the teacher offering a nice try answer they shun the effort asking them what they have been doing in class while he taught. Levels of understanding are different depend on so many factors including family back ground. Thus, putting down a child for giving a wrong answer should lead to the teacher questioning their roles in the education sector. Discouragement can also arise due to factors like failing in exams. This makes a child feel stupid when maybe the exam was difficult and above the student’s capability. The work of a teacher in this case is to offer encouragement, create an open forum between the students and the teacher whereby they can easily approach the teacher and ask for assistance with hard tasks in school. Use verbal reinforcement whenever necessary; use words like thank you, your welcome, please such words make the child or student feel appreciated despite whatever situation that is putting them down. This thus changes their attitude towards misbehaving in class as they would want to give back the same courtesy accorded to them. By trying to imitate statements, they hear from their parents or adults around them children would also be considered to misbehave. Some students use curse words often because they have heard it so many times in their household, are mean to other students since they see their elder brothers and sisters doing the same to each other. For a teacher, these entails keeping the parents abreast with the student’s progress letting them know what they do and find out if the source of such action is the home environment. If that is the case, both the two; teacher and parents can come up with possible solutions to solve the problem. Children mean to test the adults with other form of misbehavior. Children at times try to find out how much they can get away with by misbehaving. They often want to know if the teachers mean what they say. A teacher should be firm on what they say. Reward appropriate behavior and give negative reinforcement for unruly behavior. This way the students will get the idea that certain behaviors lead to certain repercussions and thus will try and avoid doing what leads to punishment of negative reinforcement. Misbehavior can also be a result of a child trying to stand up for himself or herself. Putting down a stated point could be difficult, they thus engage in destructive behavior to put a point across. This is significant because it is a sign that the child is growing up. They might do this by refusing to do activities which in their mind they consider wrong. To deal with this will force the teacher to level and reason with the student. Not necessarily agree with their point of view, but explain to them why you as a teacher think your point of view is better compared to the student’s. The discussed points have fully focused on efforts that should be put in by teachers to handle cases of misbehavior. They thus ignored the side whereby the student could be misbehaving just because they have poor manners. Teachers need to be aware and also make an effort towards stopping unscrupulous classroom behavior. In some instances, students could also just be on the wrong with nothing causing the unruly behavior. Thus, this being into consideration, ways of curbing and preventing the spread of such behaviors also need to be discussed. Counseling is certainly the first step to helping such children. Schools should ensure they have someone who has specialized to help deal with such students. A counselor will try and find the root of the behavior if any. Determined of the cause is the first step then it can either be eliminated if possible or means of toning the unruly behavior down be sought. Most schools are investing in psychologists thus it is easy to help deal with cases of misbehavior. Another solution would be pairing up the stubborn children with the less stubborn and focused one and following up on the classroom relation of such groupings. This can be helpful and detrimental at the same time mostly for the outstanding student being paired up with the misbehaving one. Thus, it becomes the teacher’s duty to ensure that the smart student’s behavior does not change while trying to rehabilitate the other student. That is ensuring that they deliver their assignments on time, engage only in academic, related activities to prevent disorientation of the focused student. Students who misbehave can also be given classroom duties. This will foster mandatory responsibility as the teacher will expect results which they will have to deliver. Such responsibilities as will reduce the time they have of misbehaving and make them be effective learners and participants in a class. Responsibility since before has been used to produce respectable members of the society. Application of the same concept in classroom would bring about improvement without a doubt. Student’s misbehavior should not be ignored irrespective of the age. Misbehavior at a young age is the main cause of all societal misfits, and unproductive individuals. This trait sticks with someone till their later stages in life, and if not addressed such people pass the same trait to their children. Schools should set up rules governing correct behavior and repercussions associated with doing the unexpected. The repercussions for young children should not be as strict as these children are still growing up and trying to discern what is accepted and what is not. Either way the rules should exist to guide the students on what is right or wrong. Teachers should be guides, instead of focusing on punishing destructive behavior a critical approach to the situation would prove to be more helpful as it will entail solving the problem from the root going up. The reports from the survey from some of the teachers showed that some of the teachers believed that misbehavior by students started by indiscipline in their families and those children who came from disciplined home showed remarkably few cases of misbehavior. It is advisable to note that changing the behavior of an adult is difficult and also teachers do not have the power to interfere with the way a family raises the children, but they can alter the student’s behavior as they spend more time with them. Also, because the student’s behavior can be altered for the better since they are still learning. Parent- teacher conference also a suggestion by most teachers would aid in reducing the level of misbehavior. Most students would misbehave only in school and portray an entirely different picture when they are at home with their parents. These conferences would allow a teacher to update the parent on students’ progress and both would find ways of working together to reduce cases of misbehavior. Suspension and expulsion also can be considered as means of dealing with misbehavior. Though both should be carefully considered as they separate the child form normal learning routine which when they come back they find other student had already moved ahead and they end up lagging behind and probably going back to their previous misdeeds. Extreme cases of misbehavior require such treatment, but under the careful guidance of a psychiatrist and the parents and the child now is now fully under the parents responsibility. Younger children respond better to time out sessions. This is because they do not like to be segregated from the rest of the students in class. The effectiveness of this method has led to its use even in homes. To show disappointment parents give children a time out whereby they are segregated in a corner and expected to stay there till allowed to leave. All the results given above proved effective as per the survey done on the teachers. Thus to implement them requires knowledge of the students before and during the school session. What they entailed their holiday or what happened when they arrived home. This information helps the teacher to before know what to expect from the learners. A teacher who listens who listens to his students learns so much from the students and will find various ways of helping them and reduce cases of misbehavior in schools. Students at some age especially adolescent around high school feel the need to experiment and do things which many would consider out of the ordinary. This period requires guidance and understanding. This stage also shapes the individual one would become thus require extra care and attention. Works cited Hamner, T. & Turner, P. Parenting in Contemporary Society. 2nd ed. Englewood, Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990. Print. Chew, Alex. L. A primer on Adlerian psychology: behavior management techniques for children. Atlanta, Ga.: Humanics Trade, 1998. Print. Condrell, Kenneth .N. Preventing Misbehavior in School. US Playtime. Web. November 12,2012 . Erin, Kurt. 8 Reasons Why Children Misbehave. Life hack. Web. November 14, 2012 Hirschy, Sharon. S and Wilkinson, E. Protecting our children: understanding and preventing abuse and neglect in early childhood. Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth, 2010.Print. Milnes, Sheila. Why Do Children Misbehave. Better kid care. Web. November 14, 2012. Mauro, Terri. Five Ways to Stop School Behavior Problems. Special Children. Web. November, 12 2012. Richardson, Deborah. Why Children Misbehave. Web. November 12, 2012, Tauber, Robert .T. Classroom management: sound theory and effective practice. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2007.Print. Read More