Lessons Learned from Challenging Students

Every student has a story and a lesson for us - some teach us about understanding, others teach us about patience and compassion. 

Challenging students are mini-teachers!

However, I find that students with challenging behaviors may teach us more than anyone else. How?  They force us to do things that we don't do on a regular basis. 

Consider this - which of these behaviors are you practicing now with a challenging student?

• We are reaching deep into our "teacher's toolkit" for teaching strategies that will work 
• We are searching out specialists and counselors to get ideas on how to handle the students' behaviors.
• We find ourselves thinking about this student and how to address this student's problems when we're away from school.
• We have conversations with other teachers and try to draw on their experience.
• We look for information that may shed light on why the student acts this way.
• We find ourselves kneeling in prayer for the patience to be professional around this student.

Well, each of these things are things that professional educators should practice on a regular basis (but we often go on "automatic" and teach within our comfort level!) In short, these challenging students get us to stretch our skills as educators, and make us better at what we do!

We should welcome this chance to grow when we have challenging students (as long as we don't have to have these students all of the time!) Let's look at them with a different eye - one that sees these students as a gift that wakes us up and moves us to learn and grow.