Rahul is a classic case of ASS (attention seeking syndrome). His drumming must be a part of that. He is not hyperactive and he is not dumb. His falling back is mostly due to the missed classes. When he comes into the class in the morning, if I offer to hug him, he comes to me with a grin measuring from one ear to the other. He will give me a hug and then run out of the class immediately lest I ask him to start reading the sight words in his folder.
Every day when I give instructions to students to start writing their passage on the subject I have given, Rahul will start with a "No". "Please write", "No". This repeats in almost all the classes in which I ask them to do anything. When I discussed this defiance with my mentor in teaching, she has told me that students usually know where they stand in class. This is a response to knowing that he comes at the very bottom in class and it is not very unusual for kids who are not doing well in their studies to do this.
For the drumming issue, I have brought a small double drum. Once the unit test is over, I am going to introduce that as a reward for Rahul to stay away from drumming during class. After class and during recess he can drum on that if he can do that. Hopefully that also makes him to start listening in class. If his ASS still plays up, I will have to find a way to get that from distracting the class. May be, going up to him every 4-5 mins and touching him will help him know that my attention is on him and he need not do anything special to get it.
I am proposing to his parents that I take 2 hours of tuition for him during the weekend for him to catch up. They usually come up with lack of mobility as a reason for him not to attend the extra class or the scholarship class I take. Since my house is closer to his house, I hope it will not be a reason any more.
Even if his future is that of a great drummer, a little bit of English and Maths will not do any harm to him in the long run.
Well, letting him have a feeling that the Teacher is giving special attention to him will make him more attentive in class.
ReplyDeleteI think educating the parents about kids education is important. I don't know whether they are in a position to listen also..
ReplyDeleteAnd the drum part is good one.. :)
Why would parents enroll their child in school and then not make sure that they are not skipping school? Do they have too many social obligations that forces them to attend all festivals and every little event within the extended family? I notice even in some middle class families here, they will attend the husband's sister's husband's brother's daughter wedding. And they think the event important eneough to take their little one out of school.
ReplyDeletePrasanth, Today I tried going to him frequently, especially when he was getting distracted, but even when he was not. It does indeed help, but after a few classes the amount of attention he seeks is too much. Let me try whether it will come down when he sees that I am always there with him every 5 minutes.
ReplyDeleteRaghu, Initially his parents were just not ready to send him to the extra classes. Then I went to his house talked to his mom and she was pretty convinced. But now again, they have problems in sending him. I think it is time for another visit and convincing session.
ReplyDeleteSwagata, I totally fail to understand their mentality. Today my colleague called up our kids (siblings in my class and hers) to find out why they were not in school yet. The kid told that their father is not waking up to leave them to school. The kids missed school today. The kid in my class was getting first rank and this time she has skipped to 5th rank due to the umpteen number of classes missed because her drunk father could not get up in the morning early enough.
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