Discipline and Students

Today two students got into a lot of trouble. They were messing around with the password setting on each others account. Once they couldn’t log on to do work in class the teacher informed the tech department about what had happened. My mentor went to talk to the boys and put the “fear of god” into them. I’m not disagreeing with punishing the boys for doing something they shouldn’t because they need that guidance to understand what they did was wrong.

I’ve been that kid. I was the little monster that was rampaging around on the schools network. I changed usernames, passwords, grades and permissions. Thats some of the tame things I did! I know what its like to be young and to have all that knowledge and power at your finger tips. I also know what it is like to get in trouble for doing such things. I’ve experience the powerless feeling of not being allowed to use a computer for weeks at a time, it’s not fun and it sinks in certain concepts.

I understand why the two boys are in trouble and I also understand how their punishment can affect them. It’s an interesting perspective. Both of the boys are students in a class I teach, a computer class. They can no longer do their work for a week because of their actions. The first class they were in I had allowed them to stay in the classroom. They had to work on writing out their program. They didn’t even start before getting into trouble again. They decided to leave the room to get a pencil without asking, I was in the middle of instructing the other students and hadn’t notice them leave. My mentor teacher did and sent them to the office.

I need to learn to handle those situations. I didn’t keep a good eye on the students and they managed to leave the room without me knowing. This wasn’t the only problem I had that day. A group girls came into the lab to print something from one of their iPhones. They proceeded to interrupt the class and distract two of the students. I told them they needed to let the boys work. In retrospect I should have been more of an authority about the situation and ask the girls to leave. I haven’t had much trouble with students not listening and thus I lack the experience to know what to do in those situations. I know a little bit more now, but experience will make me understand how best to deal with problems in the classroom.