I am so ready to just throttle a couple of my students who think that arguing with everything just for the sake of arguing with everything is okay. I'm about to lose what little temper I have, because it's the same students and the same battles every single day, several times a day.
What really irks me is a particular student who only wants to accept the rights and privileges of being 17 without any of the corresponding responsibility. He only plays the "I'm an adult" card when it benefits him, not when he has to take responsibility for his actions or decisions. It's all I can do to just reach over and smack the kid upside the head.
The rest of the day is given over to a Halloween party. Starting with lunch, we're just giving over the day to games, food, and pumpkin carving. Should be an interesting afternoon.
~chuck
Song of the Moment: Blue Mountain, "Bloody 98"
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2 comments:
The 17 year old? Call him on it. Not with frustrated anger -- frustrated anger they associate with juveniles and childish adults. Call him on it with an implacable calm -- and both because implacable calm is something teens crave (the root of the origin of the term 'cool') and because it refuses to be emotionally manipulable (whereas anger is the ultimate proof of manipulability), seeing an implacable adult elicits simultaneous awe/envy and awe/fear.
At that age, they are looking for both limits and guidance. Oh, they will bitch and kvetch and moan, because at that age they're also looking for ways to vent the hormonal frustration they can not escape, and they will even resent it somewhat because they are so desperate for empowerment, but they are also terrified of empowerment, so for all his games, the odds are very high that he wants you to call him on it as an enviably calm authority figure and not as an angry manipulable equal.
So call on it. State calmly that he can not have it both ways. Each and every time. Show an indefatiguable willingness to repeat yourself.
And if you can manage it, if you seem both amused from a superior position and respectful from a superior position, you will be the teens' god and salvation, and most of them will be eating out of your hands.
The student's actually been behaving better this week, which I'm thankful for. He's a decent guy, really, he just has very definite opinions about how the world ought to function, and he gets very ticked when things don't go the way he thinks they should.
So, y'know, not at all like me or anyone I know. Not at all.
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