Podcast - In the Classroom - Episode 38: What We've Learned from Our Most Challenging Students - challenging students
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Episode 38: What We’ve Learned from Our Most Challenging Students

Is there a teacher on the planet who has not had to deal with a challenging student or a challenging class? We think not.

The day-in and day-out difficulties posed by challenging students and classes can wear even the most optimistic and positive teacher down, never mind the rest of us. We go through something akin to the 7 stages of grief (is there a “7 stages of challenging student behavior”?). After the shock of our situation wears off and we move past our feelings of denial (Surely, it won’t be like this every day), we wade through the desperation that leaves us open to considering all kinds of classroom management techniques in the hope we will land on the magical “cure” to our woes.

Grab a cup of coffee and settle in. Let's talk about our challenging students and what they taught us.

At some point, though, we don’t want solutions: we want to commiserate. We want to hear from and talk with those who also know the struggle we face as we try to negotiate with, appeal to, and even ignore, our most challenging students. We want to feel a little less alone. We want to know we’re not bad teachers. Not bad people.

Enter this week’s dilemma. A teacher in the midst of a “the struggle is real” moment (probably more accurately, “year”) wrote in with this dilemma:

“I have an incredibly challenging class this year. There are so many behavior problems and so many student needs, and it is wearing me out. I know classroom management strategies, but I think I just want to know that I’m not alone. What did you learn from your most challenging classes?”

We have been here before, teacher friends. One of us probably more than the other, but we both have no shortage hard-earned lessons learned from our experiences with challenging students of all types. Give this episode of the podcast a listen and see if our experiences resonate with your own.

Related Content

If you’re looking for some practical classroom management strategies you can put into place to help you deal with your most challenging students, check out this blog post.

In this YouTube video, we’re sharing some classroom management strategies you can use at the secondary level for all your classes, not just those you consider challenging.