Disruptive Student, Teacher's Dilemma, Whose Job to Resolve?

(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  An article in Issue #5, 2015 of Journal of Developmental And Behavioural Pediatrics describes the impact of one student's disruptive behaviour on another student in the class. "Marcus is a 10-year-old boy who was followed by his pediatrician for several years. She knows him as a socially engaged, active athlete, playing soccer and baseball, out-going, and a good student. He has been in good health. At the beginning of this year, a new student was placed in Marcus's fourth grade class. This student is disruptive, impulsive, and abusive. He has frequent violent outbursts, yelling, kicking, and throwing objects, including recently throwing a desk across the room. The school has made efforts to manage this student. The teacher sets up behavior contracts, and the school has temporarily suspended the child; however, the school is unable to remove the child from the classroom. Many students, including Marcus, have been significantly affected by this disruption. Marcus describes the classroom environment as “tense.” He reports he is never sure what is going to make the student “so mad.” Over the last 3–4 months, Marcus developed nightmares, enuresis, and trichotillomania." Here is the dilemma confronting the teacher and the school. Do they continue to accept the disruptive student or do they suspend the student for the good of the others? Who is responsible for providing the support, both to the disruptive student and to other students affected by the situation? Read more>>
Note: This dilemma is one of the topics on the agenda of the ISHN-ASCD-EI dialogue on integrating health and social programs within the core mandates, constraints and concerns of education systems. For more on that dialogue, go to this web page.