locus of control

It is painfully difficult to admit the things you cannot control. My locus of control is so small and so limited, particularly at this point when there is so much to be done that I cannot think about it all at once. And it is so painfully difficult to come to the conclusion that you have little to no control over the home life of your students. What are you to do, for example, when you know that sending a student home with a negative mark on his behavior log will result in a dark bruise across his cheek? Your first response is most certainly to not send him home with a negative mark on his behavior log, even when he deserves it. But the reality is in fact that you would be lessening his chances for success in his future by holding him to lower expectations than the other children in class. It is a difficult but necessary conclusion that all teachers in my situation must come to: you must send him home with the check mark anyway. No excuses is the policy under which I must operate.

I have a student who used to be my angel. He responded so strongly to positive reinforcement that I would whisper in his ear that he was my personal star and he would be on point for the rest of the day. Suddenly I found bruises on his right arm like someone had grabbed him roughly and his behavior took a 180. He refused to participate or join the community of our classroom, he was disruptive, wrote that he hated himself in his journal, and covered his face with his hood all day. Of course my natural inclination was to reinforce his self-esteem and encourage him gently to rejoin our classroom, but soon the entire class was suffering and the behavior was unacceptable. He went home with another check mark that day. This morning he appeared with a dark purple bruise on his cheek that he told me he got when he hit his face on a slide and his behavior has now done a complete 360. I spent the morning unable to reconcile wanting to be gentle with his feelings when I know that he may need to feel loved with not tolerating his unacceptable behavior in class. Thus, I have no choice but to realize my limited locus of control. I must hold him to the same high behavioral expectations to which I hold all of the other students. Today, he went home with two check marks on his behavior log.

I wrote him a small note after class which I left for him on his desk, encouraging him to bring his positivity back. He crossed out all of my words, including his name, and wrote the name of another student on it. Still, I must remember why I am here and the things that I can change.