I am her teacher, not her peer. I want her to come out a better person on the other end, that is the only approach I am willing to take because that is my role here. I get your anger, I was furious when it happened, and so was the other teacher (who is part of this minority group I mentioned) but still. It’s a child and so the parents are to be held responsible for something going SO wrong.

Thank you for this really extensive comment!!

As for the term POC, I understand how unuseful it is in this situation, so let me clarify: We have a Roma/Romani minority, especially in the part of the country where I live, which causes lots of tension and unfortunately, normalised racism.

I am very young (one time I was stopped on my way to the car and asked where I was going during school time) so I don’t feel like I have authority or that anyone looks up to me, for now at least. Instead, I try to be open with them and make them feel like they can come talk to me about anything, but as I already mentioned, I don’t spend much time with this group of kids and spend only two days in the school myself.

I will definitely think about what options I have here because my ultimate goal is to educate her, and everyone else.

I made it very clear that she should not wear white laces again, but other than that I tried my best to explain why.

I’m willing to give her the time to figure things out and ask for guidance if needed, but this was unacceptable in my eyes.

As for her origin, I don’t believe she’s German herself, just lived there for a while. But encouraging her to explore other parts of the culture might be worth a shot. Thank you again!

Thank you, this is a really reasonable reply and leaves no space for jokes.

Also, if you allow me to pick your brain with another question: How would you react to a student using the n-word or a similar, generally recognised expression, especially with people of that group present?

Thank you for your comment! First of all, it’s all great advice and I’ll try my best to apply it in my practice.

They are a great group of intelligent kids and we often have adult discussions, I always make space for their interests and questions and nothing is taboo, we often talk about current events, politics, etc. They like me, as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, I don’t spend that much time with them, I only work at the school two days a week and have no means of organising any events or lectures myself.

I think her feeling is stemming from her interest in her origin, as she grew up in Germany and showed lots of interest in history, but I feel like she went off track somewhere around December or January. She also mentioned having skinhead friends at one point. How do you think I could learn more about this?

I am not one for punishment and never used any dominance or anger, I try to be very approachable and ask for feedback on my lessons from kids and parents, but I feel like this might be where I draw the line. There are lots of minority POC kids in our school and general area, I want them to feel safe, so I would really like to be firm with not allowing the above mentioned display of racism. At the same time, I want her to really understand and become a better person from this experience, so I’m really at loss about how I could achieve this.

Thank you, this is great advice. I am not from the US but rather an Eastern European country with lots of POC in my area - in fact, our sister school has about 90% POC.

I also believe that everybody should wear whatever they want and make it a point to encourage my young students’ discovery of their unique style - lots of funky hair colours and split brows these days. However, lace code IS a thing (even if not very well recognised anymore, it’s still used in many places) and she knew about it when she chose to wear the white laces, which is what bothers me here. If it was ignorance, I’d give her a heads up to avoid her getting into real trouble because of her choice of footwear but she did it knowing what it means and even made it a point for them to be fully visible.

It is clear to me that I cannot fight fire with fire and I want what’s best for my student’s personal development, but at the same time I feel like I need to be very clear about the fact that no racism will be tolerated in my classroom, just like I wouldn’t tolerate any physical or verbal abuse. Pretty much everything is a go, we have great discussions about different topics and they are a great group of kids, but racism is a very real issue in our area. We do not have any POC in our group but imagine if we had… There are plenty of POC kids in the school and I want them to feel safe more than I want this kid to wear whatever she wants.

Your story highlights how important my reaction is here, and since it’s my first year on the job, I’m really taking it seriously. However, I’m only part time and spend little time with them so I cannot really organise any workshops or lectures, but hopefully our principal will be open to the idea.

How do you think I could approach her in this case? I am generally liked by the students, but I just cannot seem to get through to her.

Definitely, negative motivation as I call it, is never enough on its own. I have lots of positive encouragement such as a system of “plus”-es that they get for participating and doing well during classes, 5 of these gains them an A, I also regularly hand out these fun coupons for those who get 100% on a task or win a game. They really like those!

Luckily I’ve mostly managed to hold myself to the rules I had outlined in our first class, so it’s not playing catch up, but more like a situation I didn’t prepare for. :) Thanks for the insight!

This is really interesting and not something I would have otherwise considered. I like the idea, but I do have some concerns that I would appreciate your thoughts on.

1. Some of them are alreaddy quite demanding - can we watch a video? can we play kahoot? can we go outside? I’m afraid they would take afvantage of this and suggest only fun activities that do not really move us along.
2. Do they really know what works for them? Or would they opt for easy to complete exercises on purpose? Are they mature enough to reflect on methodology?
3. Do you have advice on how to approach this, how to introduce this class? I was thinking we could do this next week as it will have been one month of us working together.

Thank you, this is a very important aspect of the issue indeed. I did lay down some basic principles during out first lesson and I hold myself to them. But now I think maybe I was too set on being liked that it’s like I hoped being respected would come along, but it’s the other way around. I need to focus on being respected and being liked will come along.

I had the same experience, that’s what I’d like to be myself.

Thanks for your answer, it was really thought-provoking for me.

I knew going into this that what has worked in my private lessons probably won’t work in a classroom setting, but I was still surprised.

I might ask one of my professors for advice, but I won’t be at the university until the end of the month, but it is a really good idea.

Yesterday, I reflected on your thoughts on classroom management in my country and also in the specific area where I live, which is the poorest part of the country with lots of underfunded schools. I even spoke to their formteacher and she said many of them come from small villages without any proper teachers and have a hard time adjusting, and she told me to be strict but kind. I did put together a dry-ish lesson plan for today but agreed with them that if they cooperate, I’d bring along a game for the last lesson of the day, and it was fine. We had a good discussion and they managed to work in silence as well.

Thanks for the advice!

I have considered that they might be self-conscious, but they are otherwise very outspoken and confident, so I honestly don’t think this is the issue, maybe with some of them. But I was more lenient when it came to group work today and it went much smoother, they eventually spoke more English, so I consider it a success.

As for bad grades as punishment, I don’t really have much else. Luckily, they are motivated enough to want a good grade, and I tell them time and again that I don’t want to give anyone an F for homework, or anything for that matter. However, it is a part of their class to complete the exercises I assign as homework so it would be unfair towards the others to just let it slide.

Thanks, this was very useful. I now see that I cannot properly guide them through a difficult task if I have them go at it at the same time, so I’ve been trying to follow your advice today. Also, I really like the part “don’t expect them to succeed”, we played a game at the end of today’s lessons and they did SO terrible but they seemed to be enjoying themselves, which was ultimately the goal. :)

Thanks for the advice, this was the first thing that came to my mind when they upset me yesterday, “don’t show weakness” and I didn’t. Today they told me how it’s kinda scary that I’m always smiling even when they are misbehaving, so I guess I did good.

Done! I didn’t add enough spacing between the paragraphs, sorry.

“She pisses herself every time she sees me. Wat do?” (S)he looks pretty young, and young dogs cannot control their bladder as well and for as long as adult dogs. Even adult dogs can wee a little when they get very excited, at least mine has done it before. If there is any sort of routine around these little accidents, take her for an extra pee break around that time, maybe it’ll help. If it happens way too often, it might be worth discussing with a vet. She’s adorable, by the way!

Hello! I’m new and happy to be here. Excited to explore Lemmygrad 🤗