Students Who Drive You Crazy: Succeeding With Resistant, Unmotivated, and Otherwise Difficult Young People

by Jeffrey A. Kottler, Ellen Kottler

Overview

"An absolutely necessary read for educators. The commonsense model assesses and outlines how to respond to challenging students, parents, and colleagues. This work is making a difference in my school."
—Bonnie Tryon, Principal
Golding Elementary School, Cobleskill, NY

Take a proactive approach with your most challenging students!

This second edition of a bestseller gives teachers a model to assess, understand, and respond to challenging students. The book also provides strategies for handling relationships with difficult parents and colleagues.

This fully updated survival guide offers additional strategies to help teachers manage difficult students, including those who break rules and those who are withdrawn, plus new tables and charts and questions for reflection. With real-life scenarios from interviews with teachers, counselors, and school administrators, this volume provides:

• More tips for developing active listening skills that improve communication with students and their parents
• Suggestions for creating caring communities in the classroom
• A new section on dealing with aggressive and violent behavior
• Information on understanding parent behavior and suggestions for building positive connections with parents and families
• Research from the related disciplines of nursing, social work, psychology, counseling, and family therapy

Use this authoritative handbook to establish healthy, positive relationships with students and maintain a supportive learning environment in the classroom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452295206
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/22/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	168
File size:	471 KB

About the Author

Jeffrey A. Kottler is one of the most prolific authors in the fields of counseling, psychotherapy, and education, having written more than 90 books about a wide range of subjects. He has authored a dozen texts for counselors and therapists that are used in universities around the world and a dozen books each for practicing therapists and educators. Some of his most highly regarded works include Creative Breakthroughs in Therapy, The Mummy at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal Their Most Unusual Cases and What They Teach Us About Human Behavior, Bad Therapy, The Client Who Changed Me, Divine Madness, Change: What Leads to Personal Transformation, Stories We’ve Heard, Stories We’ve Told: Life-Changing Narratives in Therapy and Everyday Life, and Therapy Over 50. He has been an educator for 40 years, having worked as a teacher, counselor, and therapist in preschool, middle school, mental health center, crisis center, nongovernmental organization, university, community college, private practice, and disaster relief settings. He has served as a Fulbright scholar and senior lecturer in Peru and Iceland, as well as worked as a visiting professor in New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Nepal. He is professor of counseling at California State University, Fullerton.

Ellen Kottler, Ed.S., has been a teacher for over 30 years in public and private schools, alternative schools, adult education programs, and universities. She has worked in inner-city schools as well as in suburban and rural set­tings. She was a curriculum specialist in charge of secondary social studies and law-related education for one of the country’s largest school districts. Ellen is the author or coauthor of several books for educators, including Secrets for Secondary School Teachers: How to Succeed in Your First Year, On Being a Teacher, Secrets for Beginning Elementary School Teachers, Counseling Skills for Teachers, English Language Learners in Your Classroom: Strategies That Work, Secrets to Success for Science Teachers, and Students Who Drive You Crazy: Succeeding with Resistant, Unmotivated, and Otherwise Difficult Young People.

She teaches secondary education and supervises intern teachers at California State University, Fullerton.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
1. Why Do Some Students Drive You Crazy?
At a Loss About What to Do
Eye of the Beholder
So, Who Gets to You?
2. Which Students Challenge You Most?
Students From Hell
Profiles of Students Who Are Difficult
Placing Actions in Context
3. Understanding Students′ Challenging Behavior
They Are Doing the Best They Can
Additional Functions of Conflict
When Biology Has Its Say
Creating Difficult Students
Multiple Viewpoints
4. What Students Do to Make You Crazy
Separating Students and Behavior
Protecting Yourself
Pushing Our Buttons
How Failure Helps
Engaging the Challenging Student
Recognizing Your Limitations
Don′t Take the Conflict Personally
It Comes With the Territory
5. Changing Your Own Behavior
Detachment Without Withdrawal
Talking to Yourself
Processing Disappointments Internally
Stop Complaining
Keeping Your Sense of Humor
Recognizing Accomplishments and Strengths
Reframing Problems
Being Flexible
Seeking Support
Help Yourself First
6. Strategies for Changing Students′ Behavior
Some Rules of Engagement
Develop a Sense of Community
Use Counseling Skills
Collaborate With Others
Brief Interventions
Develop Alternate Perspectives
7. Parents and Colleagues Who Drive You Crazy
The Least of Our Problems
Teachers Who Don′t Understand
Administrators Who Handcuff Us
Parents Who Fight Us
What About You?
Those Who Abuse You
8. Preventing Future Problems
Proactive Versus Reactive Strategies
Paying Attention to Feedback
Teacher Strategies That Maintain Momentum
Conflict Resolution
In Summary
References and Suggested Readings
Index

Editorial Reviews

"This book offers strategies, understanding, and hope for practicing educators who find themselves struggling with particular students on a daily basis and who want to reach out to students to help them reach their educational goals. "

Danielle Torres

"With its person-in-environment analysis and intervention model, this book is a good resource in the library of a school social worker. It allows for balanced and nuanced consideration of behavior and provides a framework for ethical and culturally competent practice. "

David Roden

"The book is a compact overview of the equivalent of an entire college course, blending student psychology, classroom management, and introduction to counseling. "

Katy Olweiler

"An absolutely necessary read for educators. The commonsense model assesses and outlines how to respond to challenging students, parents, and colleagues. This work is making a difference in my school. "

Bonnie Tryon

"This is undoubtedly one of the best pieces that I have ever read on problem students and I think it will be a ‘classic" handbook for practitioners in the future."

Rick Heidt

"Offers specific strategies for dealing with and preventing problematic behavior. A significant resource for principals, whether they are dealing with these students themselves, working with teachers who are having problems with specific studetns, or developing content for a staff study group. "

Research Roundup

"With so many teachers leaving the profession due to frustration and teacher burnout, this book is an important tool in helping education professionals to see situations in a different light. Kottler's book is a meaningful addition to the field of eduation in that it helps educators and others in the field to realize that they often have control in situations in which they had previously perceived themselves as being powerless and helpless."

Contemporary Psychology APA Review of Books

"An exciting and innovative text for all teachers at every stage of professional development, this book is written in an accessible and captivating style, enabling practitioners to immediately find helpful suggestions and relevant, engaging ideas."

Gerald Monk