I have a student that has a learning disability and has had behavior problems in the past. His behavior had gotten better until this year. He does an excellant job when he comes into the resource room When he is outside of the resource room, he has difficulties with his behavior. It seems to me that he is trying to impress his friends all of the time to cover up his learning disability. His behavior has been disrespect to other teachers. Any suggestions on plans to help him discontinue this problem outside of the resource room?
Re: Class clown
He does it most of the day. There doesn’t seem to be a specific time that he is doing it. It is during breakfast, lunch, in the hallway, and during classes that he takes in the regular classroom. He basically makes jokes, goofs off, tries to make others laugh by making faces etc. When he is approached with this with the teacher, he will argue with her and say that he isn’t doing anything or he will make a smart comment to her to try to make the other kids laugh.
Re: Class clown
How old is he? That would help to know.
To curb problems like this, though, I usually speak directly to the student call it like I see it. Gently and kindly, I try to speak to what I believe - that he’s understandably uncomfortable with his learning differences and that he tries to get attention away from that and onto other aspects of himself by acting this way. I might even go so far as to suggest to him he might be worred about others not liking him if he presents in a calmer, less funny way.
But is that really what he wants? I can leave them with that question or gently probe further.
It can’t hurt if done right.
Re: Class clown
Well- if you have a good relationship with him, I would certainly talk with him about it and try to find out what is going on. It may be related to his feeling different but there may be other stuff contributing that you don’t know about- including the other teacher’s or kids interactions with him or stuff at home. You don’t really have any reason to thing he is being malicious? and even if he is…My experience is that most kids will be “good” if we as a system will allow it. Since we are the adults in the system- it is our responsibility to find out why a child acts in a way that makes his life more difficult. But I am continually amazed that we often expect the child to change their behavior without changing our own…
I would describe the behavior you observe- keeping it and incident you recently saw and ask him what is going on. Chances are, if you are careful to be nonjudgemental and he is comfortable with you, he will tell you one way or the other. Then you can talk about alternatives- and maybe even practice a few.
This isn’t going to fix easily- he will continue to act out as long as he feels he has a reason to. Your job would be to help him cope with the reason in a different way.
Robin
Re: Class clown
Kristi, has he had a medical diagnosis? You have described syptoms of ADHD and a reaction to sugar overdose or diabetes?
Re: Class clown
will you tell us more about the sugar overdose and / or diabetes?
Also, what can we do exactly to change a class clown? Someone mentioned that we need to change our behaviors. Please give me an example.. thanks
What sorts of situations does he act out in? What specifically does he do?