Working With Aggressive Students After Teacher’s Aide Training: Part One
Completing your teacher’s aide training will prepare you for a variety of situations in the classroom. One such situation is working with aggressive students. This can be difficult, but with the right teacher’s aide training, you will be able to work effectively with these students and create a peaceful and functional classroom environment.
Preventing Aggression In Students After Teacher’s Aide Training
When a student becomes aggressive, it is important to address the situation, not ignore it. Many teachers and teacher’s aides make the mistake of thinking a child will simply grow out of their aggression if they simply don’t pay any attention to it. This is not true, however. If you want to reduce aggression in the classroom, there are a few ways you can work to prevent these acts from occurring after teacher’s aide training.
- Limit Access To Victims- If you recognize that a student becomes aggressive in the presence of another certain student, do your best to keep these two individuals separated. Do not place them in the same groups, vary their bathroom breaks, do not allow them to participate in activities at the same time, and do not allow them to exit the classroom together. If needed, you can work one-on-one with the aggressive student to ensure supervision and prevent access to the potential victim.
- Avoid Confrontation- While it may be tempting to confront a student immediately about certain problems, especially when they continue to mumble under their breath, but this can lead to even more problems. Wait until later, when the student is calm, and speak to the student in private rather than in front of other students.
- Use Nonverbal Prompts- It can sometimes be difficult to control the tone or volume of your voice when you are aggravated with student behavior. This can actually spur aggressive act from students. During your teacher’s aide training, you were most likely taught a few words in American Sign Language, such as sit, stop, stand, walk, or quiet. While the sign language you learned in teacher’s aide training may have been intended for hard-of-hearing students, you can easily use these commands for aggressive students as well. They will be more likely to follow a nonverbal request than a verbal one, and will not be as resistant to your commands.
- Intervene Early On- There are several stages of aggression, and if you are able to identify them early on, you may be able to intervene early on and prevent the aggression from going anywhere. If you recognize a student becoming aggressive, change the environment a bit. Send the student on a errand, ask them for help with a problem, help them participate in relaxation exercises, give them additional time to finish an assignment, or allow them to work on another project they enjoy.
- Limit Competition- When one student is pitted against another, it is the perfect recipe for aggression. Instead of using competition as a tool in the classroom, use cooperative learning strategies to help students learn how to work together instead of against one another.
Preventing aggressive actions in the classroom after teacher’s aide training is important. Come back next week for information on how to deal with aggression when it does occur in the classroom.