Me and the Toughest Kid in School.

H.

He is a nice enough kid and I think that he is pretty smart, but he is very hard to motivate and can be very disruptive. I have him in two classes, one odd period class and one even period class. That means that we spend at least an hour and a half together each and every day.

We have had our ups and downs. As I mentioned previously, on the first couple of days of my Computer I class, he worked hard on my "Skateboarder Scavenger Hunt" for an entire class period, without hardly looking up. But then, on the other hand, I have had to send him to ISS (In School Suspension) twice for being so disruptive I couldn't teach.

Unfortunately, I don't think that "Dictator Discipline" works with H. He already has a stack of 17 referrals, has lunch detention every day, is failing every class, you get the picture. I don't think that "busting him" is going to help anything. Some of the teachers in the teachers lounge think that he is on drugs. Maybe, I don't know.

He and I had a "heart to heart" today. I told him what I said above, that he is a likeable kid with some smarts, but that he appears to get bored really easily. He agreed. I told him that I noticed him working really hard on the Scavenger Hunt. He said, "Yeah, that was cool."

We kept talking and I made a deal with him. (I ran all of this by Mr. Denise ahead of time, the school disciplinarian.) If he agrees to work on the program in our classes that the rest of the kids are working on, I will let him create his own assignment. Anything that he wants to do, as long as it is school appropriate and as long as he puts his project in writing to me ahead of time. If he works for the class period and turns in some sort of product when assignments are due, I will pass him in the class. He seemed happy that someone wasn't threatening him for a change and was actually trying to work with him. He agreed to try this. He also agreed that if he was not working and being disruptive that I could send him out of class so that I could continue teaching the other students.

In our class today, the kids were working on their Computer Terminology PowerPoint presentation. H. spent the period making a slide show in weird colors with floating symbols and a bunch of spiralling letters that said "Computers are Confusing" with his name across the top. It was kind of neat, in its own way and he actually worked for the whole period. Interestingly enough, the work that he was doing was further advanced than the rest of the class. I also had him draw on the board when I needed a scribe and he liked that, as well.

Maybe I am making progress.