We are an LSEN school — learners with special educational needs. The year started smoothly. The usual management strategies were established and other classroom procedures were put in place — rules were democratically decided on, contracts were signed, learning was evolving smoothly.
But there was a little bit of mayhem. David, a new enrolment at our school in grade two, was battling to adjust to all the changes in his life. As head of department, I was often called on to intervene. David was angry, frustrated, hurtful and displayed unkind behaviour in a rather powerful way. He had previously gained the “status” of playground bully in grade one at his previous school.
In class he was uncooperative and defiant. He would usually end up being sent out of class. So he came to our school with quite a history.
David was a sturdy and handsome little fellow. He was always neatly dressed, clean and well cared for by a soft-spoken, yet firm, dad. During one of his rages he kicked and bit his teacher rather badly. I decided to remove him from that class and placed him in mine from the new term.
The children in my class knew his frightening displays of defiance from the playground. He knew me, but only as an authority figure. We all knew we faced a challenge and many changes. I knew I had to dig deep, apply procedures, resources and classroom management to ensure learning and teaching took place for all. But most of all, I knew that a relationship of trust and honesty had to develop between us.
After soul-searching and some discussion, we resolved to make it work. We were all prepared to accept him and help him to help himself. The first need was to address the defiant, aggressive and hurtful behaviour he frequently exhibited. He always wanted to be a leader in line-up or games or team activities. He was prone to temper tantrums each time he didn’t get what he wanted.
We addressed this by introducing him to our classroom procedures. I also tried a “swot” (strengths, weaknesses, opportunites and threats) analysis to search for opportunities for his growth. I felt that if I looked at what strengths he had, what weaknesses were evident, what threats there were to him, his peers, his wider environment and what opportunities emerged from this analysis, we would have a starting point.
He was academically strong. He could conceptualise, read fluently at his grade level, write effortlessly and was exceptionally well organised. But his major weakness was that he battled to wait his turn. He was argumentative, his obsession to be first caused conflict and he became aggressive when confronted with change. He was overstimulated by too much sensory input, which caused inappropriate behaviour.
His great threat was his own physical strength. He would become involved in playground conflicts, seeing himself as hero and strong rescuer when he intervened in disputes. The trouble was that he would use bullying tactics to win the battle.
Opportunities? Well, I had to apply “folk” law — firmness, order, limits and kindness — which was presented by Loretta Giocelli during a seminar on teaching disengaged boys. My challenge was to implement this in an attitude of gentleness. David battled at first. This was all new to him. Fortunately, procedures were in place and proved to be beneficial, as he could not argue when we reminded him that that was the way things were done. Every day we started with a plan of work, written out in bullet form for the whole class to follow. It was specific about which activity would follow which.
Quickly, David started working. The quality of his work warranted praise and approval. Defiance was channelled into working energy. Limits were set and David was allowed one friend at playtime. At last we had peace and cooperation. He began to feel safe. Gradually, he became eager to join in cooperative learning and was integrated into the caring group. He emerged a happy member of the class who produces wonderful work and has learned and grown.
Margaret Redman teaches foundation phase at the School of Achievement in Gauteng. She was a runner-up in the category of excellence in inclusive education and special needs teaching in the 2008 National Teaching Awards