Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Not A Poor Loser. I teach in an urban elementary school where most of the children are on free or reduced lunch. Most of the students live close to the school, but we have a small number of students from middle socioeconomic status who are bused from nearby neighborhoods. Most of these students do not qualify for free or reduced lunch. When Josh joined my 5th grade classroom two weeks ago, I handed him the free/reduced lunch coupons to be submitted to the lunch room personnel at lunch time. What I did not realize was that Josh did not qualify for free or reduced lunch but I simply made the assumption that he did because most of our students do. When Josh saw the coupons he asked me what they were and I told him what they were. He said, in a loud enough voice for everyone to hear, that he was not one of those poor losers who had to get government's help. I was surprised to hear such a thing from a 5th grade student. I told him that what he said was wrong and hurtful but he did not seem to care much. I wondered if he learned these types of things at home. Because his classmates heard what he said, they have not accepted him as a friend. Josh now is an isolated child. I have to deal with this issue. I have to find a way to bring Josh and the rest of the class together but I don't know where to begin. Do I begin with Josh, or the other students in class? How do I fix this so that all students learn some good lessons about tolerance? Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) I think I would start the conversation with why he thought he was being isolated from the rest of the class and how that made him feel. I would then go into why what he said might have hurt people's feelings and why they might be hesitant to be his friend. I would try to do all of this through questioning so that he would figure out the answers on his own. I would then try and address any feelings he might have about his moving process and him starting at this school because there may be deeper motivations behind what he said. He may be experiencing difficulties adjusting and coping with being at a new school. I would also address this with the parents.                 Rating The suggested solution is respectful of the individual (student) Yes The suggested solution is relevant to the case Yes The suggested solution is reasonable (easy) for the teacher to implement Yes The suggested solution is likely to solve the problem/issue Yes The suggested solution is original Yes Comments: Using an incident like this is a excellent way to dig a little deeper into the students home life and find out if there is more to what was said, or if it was a simple misdirected feelings. Rated On: February 21, 2018 6:37 pm Rated By: medega