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“I’m Bad, Miss, Because I’m Bored”
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Special Education
In he came complaining loudly, “She treated me like I was a punk.”
“Who treated you like a punk,” I asked?
“That secretary down in the office, he replied.”
” I told her that she shouldn’t treat me like a punk.”
After a few more questions, I finally got to the bottom of the problem. At our school, students who take the attendance to the office are to put the attendance through a slot in the wall outside the office and not go into the office with the attendance. Having all the kids go into the office is too disruptive. Now, this student knows this, but instead he decided to go into the office and give the attendance to the secretary directly. I guess when he did that, she told him to put the attendance into the slot and that’s when then the trouble started. He was rude because she was rude, or so he said. Immediately I thought ok, this this was one of those learning opportunities.(I can’t help it. I’m a teacher.) I told him I knew he knew better than to go into the office blah blah blah… I asked him why he did that and he said “I was bored. I’m bad when I am bored.” Now, this kid is “bad” a lot.That’s why he’s in my class. I told him that he was a punk for acting like that. Just as I was thinking I should have said that he acts like a punk and not that he is a punk (bad form in special education) he reassured me by saying, ” But Miss, I’m good in this class.” All I said to him was, “I hope so. All I said to myself was, “I hope he’s not bored too often in my class.”
Remember, earlier I said that I thought there was a learning opportunity in this problem. Little did I think that I would be the one to learn something. Well actually, I had already learned the lesson, but like any student, even good ones, I needed to review from time to time.. The lesson I needed to review is: Some KIDS WILL BE BAD WHEN THEY ARE BORED. Some kids aren’t simply content to march to a different drummer; they want to be the drummer.
Some kids find the regular classroom boring. There’s nothing in it for them. They’d rather be out working and doing something. They want to “do” in the real world. These kids have a problem since they are forced to stay in school, in those “boring” classrooms. Ministries of Education know this and are funding new programs for these kids, new pathways for the kids to take so they can “do”. They can be in the world of work and earn credits in the world of school. It’s really very exciting to see all this happening.
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