Monday, October 29, 2012

Disrespect

I am stuck inside with the hurricane bearing down on us.  Thank goodness we still have energy.  However, as I sit here bored out of mind I keep thinking about a situation that a student and I were in the other day.  When I picked up my students from the cafeteria, I overheard one of my students talking disrespectfully about another teacher.  Thus began the long list of things I shouldn't have done.  I pulled the student to the side and asked him to stop speaking disrespectfully about the other teacher and explained it would do no one any good to trash talk another person.  I assumed incorrectly it would end at this.  Instead the student started arguing back.  In front of my students I continued to talk to him about...*big sigh* I was giving him attention in front of his peers and was quickly losing control of the situation.  After a couple of minutes when I determined that the student was not going to back down and I had reached my frustration point, I looked up from our conversation and came face to face with my interested class staring at us, along with the office ladies.  They told me to put the student in the office. *big sigh* I did.  In hindsight I should have continued the conversation with the student at a later time when both us had distance time and there was no one but us around.  I lost control of that situation, and I worry that my relationship with this student has been damaged because of it.  But I don't know where to go from here.  I stand firm on disrespecting anyone, teacher or peer.  However, there are 20 million other ways I could have handled that and I know sending him to the office was not a good choice.  :( I don't know what I am going to do when I get back to school.  Should I apologize? Try talking to him again? Ignore the situation?  Involve parents?  I don't know...

No comments:

Post a Comment