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Students Who Drive You Crazy
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Students Who Drive You Crazy
Succeeding With Resistant, Unmotivated, and Otherwise Difficult Young People

Second Edition


August 2008 | 168 pages | Corwin

"An absolutely necessary read for educators. The commonsense model assesses and outlines how to respond to challenging students, parents, and colleagues. This work is making a difference in my school."
—Bonnie Tryon, Principal
Golding Elementary School, Cobleskill, NY

Take a proactive approach with your most challenging students!

This second edition of a bestseller gives teachers a model to assess, understand, and respond to challenging students. The book also provides strategies for handling relationships with difficult parents and colleagues.

This fully updated survival guide offers additional strategies to help teachers manage difficult students, including those who break rules and those who are withdrawn, plus new tables and charts and questions for reflection. With real-life scenarios from interviews with teachers, counselors, and school administrators, this volume provides:

  • More tips for developing active listening skills that improve communication with students and their parents
  • Suggestions for creating caring communities in the classroom
  • A new section on dealing with aggressive and violent behavior
  • Information on understanding parent behavior and suggestions for building positive connections with parents and families
  • Research from the related disciplines of nursing, social work, psychology, counseling, and family therapy

Use this authoritative handbook to establish healthy, positive relationships with students and maintain a supportive learning environment in the classroom.


 
Preface
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Authors
 
1. Why Do Some Students Drive You Crazy?
At a Loss About What to Do

 
Eye of the Beholder

 
So, Who Gets to You?

 
 
2. Which Students Challenge You Most?
Students From Hell

 
Profiles of Students Who Are Difficult

 
Placing Actions in Context

 
 
3. Understanding Students' Challenging Behavior
They Are Doing the Best They Can

 
Additional Functions of Conflict

 
When Biology Has Its Say

 
Creating Difficult Students

 
Multiple Viewpoints

 
 
4. What Students Do to Make You Crazy
Separating Students and Behavior

 
Protecting Yourself

 
Pushing Our Buttons

 
How Failure Helps

 
Engaging the Challenging Student

 
Recognizing Your Limitations

 
Don't Take the Conflict Personally

 
It Comes With the Territory

 
 
5. Changing Your Own Behavior
Detachment Without Withdrawal

 
Talking to Yourself

 
Processing Disappointments Internally

 
Stop Complaining

 
Keeping Your Sense of Humor

 
Recognizing Accomplishments and Strengths

 
Reframing Problems

 
Being Flexible

 
Seeking Support

 
Help Yourself First

 
 
6. Strategies for Changing Students' Behavior
Some Rules of Engagement

 
Develop a Sense of Community

 
Use Counseling Skills

 
Collaborate With Others

 
Brief Interventions

 
Develop Alternate Perspectives

 
 
7. Parents and Colleagues Who Drive You Crazy
The Least of Our Problems

 
Teachers Who Don't Understand

 
Administrators Who Handcuff Us

 
Parents Who Fight Us

 
What About You?

 
Those Who Abuse You

 
 
8. Preventing Future Problems
Proactive Versus Reactive Strategies

 
Paying Attention to Feedback

 
Teacher Strategies That Maintain Momentum

 
Conflict Resolution

 
In Summary

 
 
References and Suggested Readings
 
Index

"An absolutely necessary read for educators. The commonsense model assesses and outlines how to respond to challenging students, parents, and colleagues. This work is making a difference in my school."

Bonnie Tryon, Principal
Golding Elementary School, Cobleskill, NY

"This book offers strategies, understanding, and hope for practicing educators who find themselves struggling with particular students on a daily basis and who want to reach out to students to help them reach their educational goals."

Danielle Torres, Assistant Professor of School Counseling
Lewis & Clark College

"The book is a compact overview of the equivalent of an entire college course, blending student psychology, classroom management, and introduction to counseling."

Katy Olweiler, Middle School Counselor
Lakeside School, Seattle, WA

"With its person-in-environment analysis and intervention model, this book is a good resource in the library of a school social worker. It allows for balanced and nuanced consideration of behavior and provides a framework for ethical and culturally competent practice."

David Roden, School Social Worker
School Social Work Journal, March 2011, Vol. 35, No. 2
Key features
  • Includes strategies that can help you change your own internal framework when facing students who drive you crazy.
  • Contains a comprehensive catalog of things that you can do differently to improve your most difficult relationships.
  • Based on research and literature in education, as well as current practices in the related dis­ciplines of nursing, social work, psychology, counseling, and family therapy.