The Thug Crew

I had one class that had problems. Not the whole class, just a few students, but a class tends to develop a personality based on the behavior levels of the worst-behaved students, so that they become the lowest common denominator.

This class, my last class of the day, had four thugs – truly thugs, kids involved in last year’s gang fight on campus, when one student was hit in the head with a huge rock and had to be airlifted off island for neurosurgery. Not just misbehaving students, but seriously problem students.

Thug #4 transferred to another class. I still had Thugs #1, #2, and #3 – ranked in order of how badly they misbehaved in my classroom. I also had Thug Wannabe, and Junior Thug.

My policy with student who don’t behave is that I usually make them responsible for some aspect of classroom life – given responsibility, delinquent students usually rise to the challenge, become responsible, and start behaving – to the point that they then persuade other students to also behave.

I tried. Oh my, how I tried. But my Thugs were incorrigible. Thug #1 was suspended as often as he was in school. Thug #2 was often suspended; when he was in class, he was great at tiling, but belligerent, rude, and eventually beat up a male teacher and was sent to the alternative academy. Thug #3 was also suspended about a quarter of the school year (he broke his own hand in a fight, and in another incident lit a joint in a classroom, teacher present), but he settled down somewhat. Thug Wannabe was rude and obnoxious most of the time, but he finished most of his work.

Junior Thug. Junior Thug bought into the system. I put him in charge of the kiln – along with the rest of the thug crew – but only Junior Thug really enjoyed loading and unloading the kiln, placing the cone, turning the kiln on or off – he was great! And after we finished firing, he remained great – he was a model student! I still see Junior Thug at school, he always greets me with a big smile. I feel like I made a difference with him; I don’t know if it extended to the rest of his school life, but he was definitely great in my class.