Are you refusing to work?

I have a very difficult students who I'm sure I've talked about before, but can't remember his alias. I guess I'll rename him with...Elliot. Elliot is severely unmotivated in most content areas, but especially in reading and writing. He often does not participate during reading mini lessons or write during Writers' Workshop. I've tried many things to get him going, but he just doesn't seem to care. I would like to rephrase that. He does seem to care, because when I talk about his behavior or refusal to work, he often gets a very angry look like he is upset with himself. In most cases, I understand where a child's anger or dislike for a certain type of work come to play, but with Elliot, it happens so often that I'm confused by it.

Today during math, we were noticing patterns when multiplying by 10s, 100s, 1000s. The class had a sheet to follow along with. We talked about the pattern, the answer for each one, and how we would figure out the next. Well, we excluded Elliot. I sauntered (we're learning about verbs of steel as well) to his desk only to notice all the blanks were filled with question marks. The first words out of my mouth were, "This is unacceptable!" I said this first because this was a discussion I was about to have for about the 10th time with Elliot. We've talked about it being unacceptable to write a question mark in the blank when we are working as a group and when there are 2 teachers to help (myself and my aide). I erased all of the question marks for him, tried to get him going again and he just put his head down. I asked, "Are you refusing to do your work?" He nodded his head.

-- I am documenting exactly how I handled the situation. I would not handle this type of situation like this every time, but I have given this child about 300 chances in many different settings within our classroom. You may not agree with this, but at the moment, and still during reflections, I agree with what I did. Also keep in mind that I already have a conference scheduled for tomorrow with this child's parents.--

I asked Elliot to leave my classroom. My door was already propped open, so I asked him to sit right in the doorway. When I got the rest of the class back on track, I asked Elliot if he was ready to re-enter our classroom and return to work. If he was not, I told him that he could go sit in Ms. H's room next door. (She is aware of this student's behavior and is very helpful in stressful times.) He followed me back to his desk and immediately put his head down. I said, "Grab your paper. You are going to Ms. H's room." "I don't want to go in there." "I'm sorry. It is not a choice. I gave you a choice to work and you chose not to. You have no more choices." He went to Ms. H's room and sat for the remainder of math.

I obviously have to figure out some way to motivate this student to work, but I'm stumped. He HATES cooperative work (and we do a lot of that), he hates anything that takes too much energy, he hates talking in front of the class (which I don't force on any child), and he hates when I ask him to do something. This child is very bright in math (commended on our state test last year) and fairly competent in reading. Unfortunately, he has only shown me that he is incapable of doing work without my step-by-step-by-step guidance....uuuugggghhhh!

Don't Argue With Me!

What bothers me more than kids who talk non-stop or dance in their seats? KIDS WHO ARE DISRESPECTFUL! I can handle misbehaving if you're not hurting other kids or if you talk so much that I hear your voice even when you're not talking, but I CANNOT handle kids who are disrespectful.
When a teacher (specifically me) asks you to stop shouting across the room, interrupting me, playing in line, and numerous other things...you should STOP! When you stop and then do it again when I turn around, I consider that disrespectful because you know you aren't supposed to be doing it and you're still doing it. You laugh or smirk when I ask you to stop and look around for support from your classmates...there is no support. They gave up on you. They tell me when you're not listening or when you're bothering them. They don't like when you're rude to me and don't listen. They want to learn and you're keeping them from that. They've learned when to not say anything. JUST SHUT YOUR MOUTH and KEEP IT SHUT! You also don't need to have a comeback for EVERYTHING. It didn't matter what you did before, just STOP! If you try to argue to cover it up, I'm not going to listen...I'm going to get more frustrated with you!

If you haven't guessed, I got very frustrated with this child today. He can't just stop talking, he needs to give me an excuse or tell me why he should be talking or out of his seat or playing in line or putting his hands on another kid's shoulders or...(insert anything else you could imagine).
Thankfully I am in a portable and it was a nice day (with my door open), so that he could go sit on the porch where I could see him and he could hear us. While he was outside, the kids began telling me everything he's done wrong today...and by wrong I mean he wasn't following my directions after multiple warnings.

This could have been enough for today, but of course there's more! I have bus duty this week and the rule is that the teacher walks in front of the kids to get to their buses so they walk slow enough nobody gets run over. Well, this child didn't want to walk behind me. I warned him twice that if he didn't, he would be holding my hand. You guessed it...he needed to hold my hand. Except, he refused! Of course he tried arguing his way out of it. But before he could even say a word, I said, "No." "No." "No." "No." "No." "No." (after each of his attempted excuses) He still refused to hold my hand until I threated to get the assistant principal. Even then, he tried letting go of my hand and running to the bus. I just stopped and waited for him. If he truly had as much guts as he thinks he does, he would have just run to his bus...we were only 15 feet away from it. My goodness, why couldn't you just listen the first time?

Tomorrow begins a new behavior plan with "Disrespectful", as I will refer to him from now on.