arguing is driving me crazy!!!

I have a similar situation with four different children and my classroom is very small, so I can only separate them so much. Because of your students’ age, I don’t know how well this will work with them (I have 4th and 5th graders) but I use a system of reporting to the parents daily. The children have several goals for which they recieve points for throughout the day and if they’ve met their goal, they get some type of reward at school and hopefully at home as well. (I discussed the situation with the parents before I started using it.) You could try something like that, or ask your guidance dept. if there are some sort of meetings or group sessions that the children could attend to vent whatever their problems are.

I feel sorry for any teacher who has to put up with that type of nonesense. Have you discussed the matter with the parents of the boys? If the parents aren’t cooperating with you won’t the principal help you out or the school psychologist.

I have alway told my son since day 1 of school if he gets in trouble at school or on the bus he will be in trouble at home. I also give that message to the teachers and bus driver at the beginning of each year.

My son is 9 and not the perfect kid but he has never been in trouble at school or on the bus.

Good luck.

As a mother of a 7th grade boy, I can offer this opinion. They might not be bickering at all, this seems to be how boys this age communicate. My son and his “friends”, all talk to each other this way. They are always calling each other “gay”, “retard”, stupd, very insulting comments, but they all seem to do it. So maybe you could just try ignoring it, it might just be a phase.
This isn’t a professional opinion, just an observation from a parent.

Have you been spying in my classroom??? I have (or I should say had) the same situation with the same age group of kids in my reading and lang. arts class. All of them bickered, argued, told each other to shut up, called each other stupid, etc. It’s a class of 6th-8th grade boys!!

I implemented the marble jar and life has changed dramatically. I am in favor of positive reinforcement and this works wonders. Anytime anyone does something the right way ( speaks nicely, doesn’t argue, sounds a word out correctly, has all of their materials ready when class begins-whatever positive behavior I can find) I drop a marble in the jar. When the entire class is behaving favorably, I drop one marble per person. Sometimes I have double marble day when everyone gets two marbles for each “good thing”. The “good thing” can be anything you want it to be-just call attention to the desired behavior (“Richard, thank you for having your books ready at the start of class-you’ve earned a marble for everyone”, or “Thomas and Steven, you two seem to be getting along nicely today-you’ve earned marbles for the class”), and then drop a marble or two into the jar.

When the marbles reach a pre-determined level (and it shouldn’t take more than two weeks or so to reach this level at first), the class gets a reward. You can stretch the time span out as the kids become used to system. Food is the most popular reward with this age group, I find. We had a McDonald’s breakfast party the first time they reached the top of the marble jar (in fact we’re having another one tomorrow). The second time they reached the top of the jar, we watched Shrek.

While this has worked wonders in the overall improvement of class behaviors, we can still have our ‘moments’. Technically, you shouldn’t remove marbles once they’ve been earned, but twice I did just that and it was very effective in restoring order. No one wants to take the blame for losing marbles.

Good luck if you try this-it’s fun to do and it does seem to work for me!
Laurie

Using a little “reverse psych” if you will .. As much as the boys seem to “dislike” each other, they obviously want each others attention. They must at some level care about each others opinions. When my 13 & 14 year olds start with each other - if I can catch the first verbal punch, I jump in & say “John, you obviously want “Mikes” attention. Do you notice this Mike? John, what it is that you want Mike to know so we can move on. - It seems to shock them at first, but it also begins to Identify the start of the battle of words for them. So they can learn to Control themselves & find better ways to get each others attention.
I like the marble idea.. but as a student I hated being punished for the kids that wouldn’t behave. I would add a stipulation..if John and Mike cause the other students a delay in “reward”, then when the reward comes, they will spend it ..together. (eat in the same area of the room). Reason being, if they want to take up so much time together, NOWS the time. Good Luck, I know how grating and annoying this is to hear day after day.

thank you for all the responses. what finally happened with my boys is that they have been separated by different classrooms. but I love the idea of the marble jar thing. great idea. also I really began to wonder if they weren’t competing with each other. I’ll let you all know what happens. thanks again