A few weeks before the summer vacation, some students seem to be completely dropping out. But behind certain attitudes taken for laziness or provocation, teachers perceive warning signals.
In June, in the classrooms, everyone feels that the year is coming to an end. The students are already thinking about the holidays, the teachers are juggling class councils and report cards, and motivation is really starting to show. However, it is also a time when certain behaviors become more visible. Those that we notice more because they repeat themselves, because they tire the teachers or because they completely break the rhythm of the lesson. Except that behind these attitudes, there is not always a “complicated” student or “one who seeks limits”. Very often, there is especially a teenager who is not doing well, who drops out or who can no longer keep up.
Many teachers say that they learned this through experience, sometimes after several years spent in front of classes. Because at the beginning, when faced with a student who refuses to work, the reflex is to think that he is not making an effort. Then, over time, some understand that things are rarely that simple. A teenager can get stuck for many reasons: a complicated family situation, lack of sleep, learning difficulties, anxiety about grades or simply a complete loss of self-confidence.
As specialist teacher Amanda Morin explains on the educational site The Pathway 2 Successfour behaviors regularly recur among students who are going through a complicated period: excessive humor, used to divert attention as soon as an exercise becomes difficult, permanent agitation, repeated forgetting of material and refusal to participate, even on simple questions. Taken separately, these behaviors are not necessarily significant. But when they persist over time and accumulate, they can reveal real discomfort or a disconnection.
The problem is that these behaviors quickly become annoying. When a teacher has prepared his lesson and a student refuses to open his notebook, frustration quickly builds. However, many teachers today explain that power relations are almost useless. Excluding a student from class, taking them back in front of everyone or increasing threats often ends up blocking the situation even further. Some teachers now prefer to calm things down, discuss after class or offer more concrete and constructive solutions. Temporarily reducing the amount of work, allowing a few minutes to breathe, offering two exercises of your choice or adapting certain supports can sometimes unblock situations that seemed completely frozen.
