Sixteen-year-old Joel Santos recalls a shouting match between a fellow student and a teacher that started with “Shut up!” and escalated. Other students swear at their teachers. And Kim L. Veth, 16, remembers one fourth-grade classmate who got so bored that he started dancing on a table.
When it comes to being heckled, stand-up comedians have nothing on teachers. Comedians know they were hired to entertain, but teachers have to be part motivator, part counselor and part disciplinarian, all as a means to educate.
So how do they deal with the sass? For Chad Malone, an English teacher at Claremont Academy in Worcester, a public school that partners with Clark University, the keys are keeping rules to a minimum and not blowing his top.
“Crazy behavior problems come from being bored in the classroom,” he said. “The kids have to be engaged in what they’re doing, and that, I think, comes from being planned out and ready to go with the day.”
Joel, who is one of his students, agrees. “Students get bored … because teachers just stand up there and talk in a boring way,” he said.