Tim

All of the teachers are expected to keep notes on one male student at my school, let's call him Tim. The boy in question has an IEP and is labeled with an emotional disorder. I can't explain what happened from September until now, but it seems he has been getting progressively worse in my class.

At first, he started out making ridiculous noises and whistling and being generally annoying -- which you get used to very quickly as a middle school teacher. But the first time I asked him to stop whistling, he looked straight at me and denied he did it. Okay. Next, he fell head over heels with the idea of throwing paper balls all over my room. "Tim, please stop throwing paper and pick up what you threw -- thank you." His reply: "I didn't throw it. God threw it." Totally deadpan too, by the way. Excellent.

From there, the problems have only escalated. He doesn't want to sit in his seat sometimes so he spends the first 10 minutes of class doing the worm on my floor. He'll crotch in the corner and put his hands over his face, shouting, "you can't see me!"

Did I mention he scores higher on state exams than most of the other students in his class?

Positive reinforcement seems to work for a minute or two, and then he promptly forgets the attention and begins acting out again.

So, we continue to keep records and logs. A bizarre part of the job, I must say.