Thursday, June 13, 2013

Disruptive Behaviour

I've recently read an article about disruptive pupils and that they should be put in separate classrooms as not to disturb the other students. Is this really the right solution to the problem? 

There is no doubt that disruptive pupils might have a negative impact on other students, and that their troublesome behaviour may deter ordinary students from studying; however, I still believe that gathering pupils with misbehaviour together to be taught separately would not improve the situation.

First of all, pupils are disruptive for all sorts of reasons. They might suffer from insecurity due to family problems; boredom, which can be caused by an uninspired curriculum; learning difficulties; or poor self-confidence that often leads to aggressiveness and conspicuous behaviour. When these factors are considered, it is certainly not a good idea to put all children with more or less the same problems in one classroom, simply because they would lack the opportunity to be positively influenced by well-behaved pupils in order to develop optimal behaviour. In fact, their behaviour might worsen, if they are solely surrounded by disruptive children.

While some people argue that separation would be beneficial not only to students but also to teachers who want to work without interruption, disruptive pupils could believe that they are being isolated because something is seriously wrong with them. As a result, they could feel excluded, which eventually lowers their self-esteem and might worsen their behaviour.

Last, but not least, the implementation of separate groups for noisy students demands additional expenses for school authorities, since extra teachers and rooms will have to be provided. Moreover, teachers will have to be prepared with professional training to deal with this kind of behaviour, which means increased costs.

To sum up, the idea of separate classes is not an effective solution to the problem of disruptive behaviour at school. In my opinion, it would be advantageous if teachers were equipped with strategies on how to tackle the problem.

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