Coping with Seven Disruptive Personality Types in the Classroom

More documents

Recommendations

Info

How to Respond• Feel free to remain imperfectWhen some students place undue pressure upon you to be perfect in your knowledge andbehavior, do everything you can to realize that this is an irrational and unrealisticexpectation to impose on another person, including you. Feel free to remain imperfect; donot strive to be a flawless automaton because some of your compulsive students expectperfection from you.If necessary, acknowledge your more glaring mistakes with humor, equanimity, and anynecessary apologies. Then remember: just because these compulsive students may beuncomfortable with the imperfections of the world does not mean you have to share theirdiscomfort!• Remind them you are a qualified instructor and expect to betreated with respect and dignityIf some student with a compulsive personality style tends to harass and bully you becauseyou have not met his perfectionistic expectations, let him know that you are a qualifiedinstructor with the requisite skills to be his imperfect teacher and you expect to be treatedwith the respect and dignity to which you are entitled. If that is not good enough for him, hemay need to be disciplined for being disrespectful.Here is an illustrative anecdote: Many years ago, Isaac Bashevis Singer, who later became aNobel laureate for his many wonderful Yiddish tales, gave a lecture. Singer spoke at length,and with erudition, on the subject of the roots of Jewish literature. At the end of this lecture,there was a question and answer session that began with a question from a man who had anitpicking, pompous, and irritating air.He began his remarks by saying that he believed that Mr. Singer had contradicted himself atcertain points in his lecture and then proceeded to long-windedly explain how and why.Singer listened patiently and then calmly explained certain points that indicated he had notcontradicted himself. He then took a look at the audience, with an impish smile on his face,and said with his charming Yiddish accent, “However, if I did happen to contradict myself, Iwouldn’t commit suicide.” A roar of laughter followed.Singer was clearly the wiser and deeper of these two men—one who strove for an unrealistic,perfect consistency in his life, and the other, the true sage, who was content to live with hisown personal imperfections and ambiguities and enrich the world with his enchanting,32
imaginative tales nonetheless.It seems that there has been an increase in cheating and plagiarism in college recently, andsome of that may be due to compulsive behavior. Of course, cheating has always existed incollege; certainly, older generations of students and fraternity members were apt to reuseterm papers from their files. Nevertheless, compulsive behavior is probably a bit moreevident now than it used to be a generation ago. This may be due in part to high levels ofcompetition and pressures to succeed. So, the average instructor can expect to run intoinstances of this type of behavior from time to time.Beyond the realm of cheating and annoying perfectionism are other related issues, includingcompulsive movements, such as rocking or verbal comments. If rocking and verbalcomments markedly disrupt the ability of other students to learn and the instructor’s abilityto teach, the instructor should meet with the offending student to discuss the disruptivebehavior. If, in the course of this meeting, it comes to light that the behavior is somehowinvoluntary and symptomatic of a documented disability, the instructor may request that thestudent seek an accommodation through the disabled students’ office of the campus.The instructor may also request the student’s permission to share with other students thefact that the student suffers from a disability that causes the rocking or verbal comments.This might serve to destigmatize the behavior and make it more socially tolerable.However, whether the student suffers from a disability or not, be aware that under the lawinstructors are not required to make sweeping accommodations in either their pedagogicalmethods or their curricula in order to sustain a highly disruptive student in the classroom. Ifmatters reach such serious proportions that the compulsive rocking or verbal commentsrequire sweeping accommodations in order to retain the student, it is probably time for theinstructor to report the matter as a case of disruptive student conduct and request that adisciplinary sanction be used.33
Page 1 and 2: Coping withSeven DisruptivePersonal
Page 3 and 4: About This White PaperThis Magna Pu
Page 5 and 6: IntroductionThe typical college pro
Page 7 and 8: kThe Explosive StudentCharacteristi
Page 9 and 10: However, in situations in which the
Page 11 and 12: lThe Antisocial StudentCharacterist
Page 13 and 14: when detected and verified, have ad
Page 15 and 16: mThe Passive-Aggressive StudentChar
Page 17 and 18: • Keep records; mention in syllab
Page 19 and 20: play equally escapist video games.
Page 21 and 22: The issue here is that a great many
Page 23 and 24: nThe Narcissistic StudentCharacteri
Page 25 and 26: A short, straightforward comment to
Page 27 and 28: Without much ado, the consultant to
Page 29 and 30: pThe Litigious StudentCharacteristi
Page 31: qThe Compulsive StudentCharacterist
Page 35 and 36: Appendix A: Additional Issues and C
Page 37 and 38: of it. That could result in you bei
Page 39 and 40: had seen him as a potential menace
Page 41 and 42: to say, “Well, we agree to disagr
Page 43 and 44: As we know, some college football p
Page 45 and 46: Imitation of murderers is another r
Page 47 and 48: #3: Passive-AggressiveStyleCharacte
Page 49: We Value Your FeedbackWe hope you

Coping with Seven Disruptive Personality Types in the Classroom

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?