MR. D'S NOTES ON TEACHING
Rev. Stanley L. Derickson Ph.D.
COPYRIGHT 2001

Chapter 5

BEHAVIOR:

In the area of behavior we have two basic types and I think that we all know what they are. Good and Bad! Good we like and bad we dislike.

So if we don't like it how do we get rid of it?

How do you handle misbehavior?

1. Encourage good behavior and activity while, discouraging bad behavior and activity.

2. If it gets bad you might try talking to the parents, though this may or may not help.

3. At times a word during class will stop it. Embarrassment is a mean, but good teacher.

4. At times just a stern look will control the minor misbehavior.

5. If you have an assistant available have them sit beside, or stand behind the troublesome student for a while. Proximity to authority may work.

6. Sending them out of the situation may be required, but you need someone to supervise them or bigger trouble will emerge.

You can't spank. You can't send home. (Unless safety is involved.) You can't lock them in the closet. You can't sit on them. You can't ignore it! It won't usually go away on it's own. You can't ignore misbehavior for long without allowing the student to make it a habit.

Behavior and misbehavior rest on the result of decisions made in the students mind. Good decisions lead to good behavior and bad decisions lead to bad behavior.

I trust that this does not surprise you, because you and I operate on the same principle. When we make a decision to not sin, we behave properly, and when we make a decision to sin, we behave improperly.

As you teach a class, be it Sunday school, VBS, or camp or any other class for that matter you have students that are making choices. Based on those choices, the child will behave or misbehave. If the child makes wrong choices, then misbehavior becomes the norm. If they make good decisions then good behavior will be in place.

Some things that affect behavior in the class.

1. Situation: The curriculum can very definitely affect behavior. If the lesson is poor, boring, or lagging, then the students will be the same and they will be looking for things to do that are more fun and interesting.

THEY WILL FILL THE TIME IF YOU DON'T!

Anything that allows for trouble in the area will affect the behavior. If you have a session in the out of doors, you are wide open to interruptions that will allow for poor decisions. The benefit of outside sessions may well be worth the risk.

Look at your situation and evaluate before the students arrive. If you have pranksters and there is a glass of water on the table you can remove a problem or situation by getting rid of the water before the trouble comes.

If you are not properly prepared, you have set a situation that may lead to trouble due to the students boredom and lack of things to do.

2. Personal Characteristics: The personal makeup of the students will determine some of the decision making.

Example: If you have a class of shy kids, you probably have it made. If you have live wires, then you will need to be on your toes.

Example: If you have a child of 150 IQ and several of 100 IQ then you have potential of one student that is bored stiff with what you have prepared.

Example: If you have students from wide variety of ethnic or financial backgrounds you will have a wide spectrum of interests to overcome.

3. Goals: If the student has a goal, or set of goals for the time spent in the class there will be significantly less chance of problems. The student will be working toward the goal and be interested in reaching it.

When you introduce the class session, be sure to introduce what the session goal is and why they should be interested in the lesson.

Goals will tend to raise the motivation that they need to get into the class. Motivation is not something that you can give them but rather it is something that you must stir up.

Contests can help in starting to gain interest.

We took a Jr. Hi/Sr. Hi Sunday school class that had a group of kids that had not been motivated in a good way for many moons.

The first thing we ran into was behavior problems. The problems were left over from the poor class situations of the past.

We set up a contest and it began to help. The boys were against the girls and the guys weren't going to let those girls win, and the girls were out to blow the boys away.

It took a couple of months before we felt that the behavior problems were transferred from disruptive to fun jabs at one another. As time went along the class settled into a relatively good attitude and the main behavior problems disappeared.

4. Interpretation: The student may misinterpret your situation and make a poor decision leading to misbehavior, because you have set up the situation in a wrong manner.

Example: You decide to have a birthday cake for one of the students and you leave it in the room before class. You need the overhead so go to find it leaving the room unattended. The child arrives - no one around - cake - hunger - poor decision.

You might set wrong goals for the session and again the student may misinterpret leading to misbehavior.

Example: You set a goal that is not achievable by the student and this results in boredom that leads to trouble.

5. Actions: If you have a situation that is uncomfortable for the student you may cause anxiety which usually surfaces as nervous actions, hesitancy in answering etc.

A good calm relaxed atmosphere is best if you can create it. Questioning or calling on students that are very shy will also cause this type of anxiety.

Irritability may result if things become heavy in this area.

Example: If you are nervous about a situation and you sit on the edge of your chair long enough the discomfort may well translate into outward problems.

6. Reaction frustration: This is what can set in if the student responds wrongly to some part of the situation. As they realize they have responded wrongly it frustrates them and they may continue to other wrong decisions, or they may quite in frustration, or they might dive into tears, fights, etc.

Part of my personal mental make up is to do correctly. If I know the rules, I will naturally follow them. If I know the rules and obey them and find that I have done wrong because of an exception to the rules that I was not told about I will become frustrated.

When in college I had a professor that graded very strangely at times. Many of the students were becoming frustrated because they did not know what he wanted or how to approach the assignments to get a good grade.

I went into a final test under the man with this frustration and found that I made some really dumb mistakes on the test because I was nervous over doing work for him. I had studied well for the test and when I read a question I took it wrongly and laid out the wrong information. I knew the information that he wanted, but the frustration caused enough anxiety to upset my normal thinking patterns.

In general you need to understand the above items and set up your teaching situations to the best extent that you can to counter wrong situations and incorporate all of the students that you have into the class equally.

You will want to see to it that you have goals for the students to react to and aid their interpretation of all that you are doing. (This is done by explaining things to them as you go along.)

You need to watch the student's reactions and actions to the overall situation and help in any way that you can if you see anxiety coming to the surface.

The point of all this is to say, you need to do the best you can to eliminate these misbehavior traps from you teaching situations.

ATTITUDES:

There is a difference between knowing what right action is and doing it. The difference between these two is attitude. If the student does correctly then the attitude is good. If the student knows right and does wrong, then attitude surfaces.

Where do wrong attitudes come from?

1. They may come from following a model. Models can be good models and some can be bad models. This is one reason that we want all students to take Christ as their model for their life. If they do this then their attitudes and actions will be correct. To put it another way you might say, "Monkey see monkey do!"

If the student sees or believes that the model would act a certain way then that will be their action as well.

Where do students find models? Parents are first to enter the child’s mind as a model to pattern themselves after.

Our granddaughter saw her mother rocking the baby in the infant seat with her foot. Granddaughter got her doll and doll bed, set it up and began rocking her doll. She looked at her mom and asked her, "How old is your baby?" Her mom replied, "About six months. How old is yours?" "Oh, about sixty."

She imitated the present situation as well as a situation she had observed at some time in the past.

Parents as models last till about five. Models do change and the parent should be prepared for this.

The Sunday school teacher also should be watching for changes. A choice of a bad model will not be easily changed by a parent, but a teacher might be able to.

The teacher may well be the next model on the list. Surveys have revealed the following things that students like in their teacher models:

Students like for the teacher to respect them.
Students like for the teacher to be patient.
Students like for the teacher to talk on wide range of topics.
Students like for the teacher to be fair.
Students like for the teacher to have a sense of humor.

If the student has a variety of teachers as in a camp situation there may be one teacher where trouble arises, and other teachers may not have a problem. The teacher that receives trouble may be very different than his/her model.

Curriculum can also introduce a new model. Historical figures discovered in secular school may be the hero. Many younger students accept Abraham Lincoln for a goal for their life for a while.

An improper attitude can come from wrong influence in the verbal area as well. If the student has spent time with another with an attitude problem, then it is a good possibility that there will be two bad attitudes.

Being forced to attend can certainly dig up a bad attitude or two or three or a dozen.

Being out of fellowship with God will certainly result in off centeredness as well as discontent or dislike of a situation can cause attitudes to falter.

Attitudes can be deepened or eliminated. If you can determine where the problem came from, it may be as simple as explaining the correct view of things.

Attitudes may deepen if the student shares the feelings with someone that agrees and reinforces that attitude. If the student is running in bad company there will be reinforcement of all sorts of wrong attitudes.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - TEACHER/PUPIL CONTRAST:

TEACHER PUPIL
_______________________________________________________________________

1. disorganized, aloof, uncertain boredom, unruliness, misbehavior

2. orderly, responsible, democratic interested, cooperative
friendly, consistent

3. if # 2 is true but teacher is docile (like sheep)
not flexible

4. understanding, original, creative proud of teacher, go getters in
democratic the learning area