I am a Vice Principal, Teacher Librarian and Itinerant teacher in a dual stream school of over 400 students. My goal is to know everyone by name (students, teachers and support staff) as I am hoping that by knowing each person by name I can begin to develop a relationship with them.
I had a student in my office this morning. I know him by name but have yet to develop a relationship with him. I had been teaching a lesson in his classroom and eventually, due to his distracting behaviour for me and the students around him, had to ask him to leave. The brief discussion after was frustrating. He was upset, as was I and he felt very strongly that he had done nothing wrong. Rather than have the conversation that I felt was going nowhere invited him to my office during the break to discuss it further.
I have to give him credit because I didn't really think he would show up and had just begun to consider what to do if he hadn't.
We sat at a table and I was honest and told him how frustrated I was during our classtime together. I then asked him if he didn't think my reaction was right, what did he think was reasonable? What would he have done if he had been the teacher and someone had shown the same type of behavior? At what point would he have done something? He didn't have an answer, not because he was being defiant but because I don't think anyone had ever asked him the question before.
What are reasonable expectations? Its definitely worth the discussion.
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