Interesting questions related to categorizing students, EEE. I can only speak to my experience of teaching for twenty years in an upper elementary school which houses around 550 students, fairly evenly split between grades 5 and 6. You offered up a variety of categories for the children: troubled, bullied, bullies, shiny and bright, popular, and despised. Troubled: sure, and there may be a multitude of reasons from crappy home life, trauma, brain chemistry, learning disabilities, unknown causes. Sometimes a child may sadly be plagued by one, several or all of these causes, and surely other things that the teacher is unaware of. These kids, through no fault of their own, have experienced awful luck. So much of life is luck, good, bad, and everything in between. Society does do not understand how massively consequential luck is! Bullied/Bullies: honestly, we take this very seriously, and it's important to know that there are strict definitions for what constitutes bullying. Frequently, kids and parents will toss the word around when it does not apply. I believe our administrators have generally done a good job investigating all claims and providing the related consequences. Truth be told, I am of course not privy to a lot of this process but on the relatively few occasions that I had a student involved, I was impressed with the seriousness displayed by administration. Shiny/bright: thankfully, each year, I had several, and on occasion, a fair number of kids who fit this category. And shiny and bright don't always go together. There have been so many respectful, hardworking, thoroughly likable kids who weren't academically stellar, but were just great kids to see each day. Give me a hardworking and respectful kid who struggles some over a high-achieving snob any day! Popular: sure, each class has a few, or more, and they aren't always the best academically or athletically. They just are cool to everyone and have a certain innate charisma. They can be stuck up sometimes, but not usually. In general, the jock boys find each other, the pretty girls hang together, as do the artsy, hair-dyed kids, while some who don't easily fit into these categories also find each other. There are interactions, and even friendships among the groups but the kids often have a self image and seek out similar kids for friends. Despised: I truly haven't seen a child who I would categorize as despised. Yes, there are socially odd kids, some of whom are no doubt autistic, but others just march to their own drummer, but I haven't seen anyone even close to being despised, thankfully! :) As to teachers knowing all of these disparate personalities, well, the classroom teacher eventually has a good handle on the assorted personalities, and sometimes, it only takes a day or a week. Most reveal themselves pretty quickly but there are some who take their time, or simply evolve as the year goes on. Our school has professional learning teams of 4 classes so there could be 85-100 students in a PLT. Each teacher simply can't get a good handle on all of the kids but those who get into trouble on a regular basis would be known by all 4 teachers as well as the paraeducators (teacher's aides) who assist. Again, EEE, this is a sample size of one school, in a New Hampshire suburb, which is probably 90% white and middle class, though there is a definite socioeconomic range with some kids in apartments and others in McMansions. I hope this answers some of your questions. Peter T.
EEE and Categorizing the Kids
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Interesting questions related to categorizing students, EEE. I can only speak to my experience of teaching for twenty years in an upper elementary school which houses around 550 students, fairly evenly split between grades 5 and 6. You offered up a variety of categories for the children: troubled, bullied, bullies, shiny and bright, popular, and despised. Troubled: sure, and there may be a multitude of reasons from crappy home life, trauma, brain chemistry, learning disabilities, unknown causes. Sometimes a child may sadly be plagued by one, several or all of these causes, and surely other things that the teacher is unaware of. These kids, through no fault of their own, have experienced awful luck. So much of life is luck, good, bad, and everything in between. Society does do not understand how massively consequential luck is! Bullied/Bullies: honestly, we take this very seriously, and it's important to know that there are strict definitions for what constitutes bullying. Frequently, kids and parents will toss the word around when it does not apply. I believe our administrators have generally done a good job investigating all claims and providing the related consequences. Truth be told, I am of course not privy to a lot of this process but on the relatively few occasions that I had a student involved, I was impressed with the seriousness displayed by administration. Shiny/bright: thankfully, each year, I had several, and on occasion, a fair number of kids who fit this category. And shiny and bright don't always go together. There have been so many respectful, hardworking, thoroughly likable kids who weren't academically stellar, but were just great kids to see each day. Give me a hardworking and respectful kid who struggles some over a high-achieving snob any day! Popular: sure, each class has a few, or more, and they aren't always the best academically or athletically. They just are cool to everyone and have a certain innate charisma. They can be stuck up sometimes, but not usually. In general, the jock boys find each other, the pretty girls hang together, as do the artsy, hair-dyed kids, while some who don't easily fit into these categories also find each other. There are interactions, and even friendships among the groups but the kids often have a self image and seek out similar kids for friends. Despised: I truly haven't seen a child who I would categorize as despised. Yes, there are socially odd kids, some of whom are no doubt autistic, but others just march to their own drummer, but I haven't seen anyone even close to being despised, thankfully! :) As to teachers knowing all of these disparate personalities, well, the classroom teacher eventually has a good handle on the assorted personalities, and sometimes, it only takes a day or a week. Most reveal themselves pretty quickly but there are some who take their time, or simply evolve as the year goes on. Our school has professional learning teams of 4 classes so there could be 85-100 students in a PLT. Each teacher simply can't get a good handle on all of the kids but those who get into trouble on a regular basis would be known by all 4 teachers as well as the paraeducators (teacher's aides) who assist. Again, EEE, this is a sample size of one school, in a New Hampshire suburb, which is probably 90% white and middle class, though there is a definite socioeconomic range with some kids in apartments and others in McMansions. I hope this answers some of your questions. Peter T.
