When we get a new kid in the school, we always get a packet of information about them: sometimes it’s a thin bracket; sometimes it’s a fat pocket. But there’s always a packet.

Many of the documents included in the packet deal with the student’s behavior. Sometimes the reports in the packet don’t match the student’s behavior at the beginning. For example, a student may have information in their pocket detailing a long history of behavior issues: insubordination, disrespect, fighting, skipping class, and everything in between. Occasionally, the packet even includes information about how many administrative referrals I didn’t and the details about those administrative referrals. In general, the fatter the packet, the more there is to worry about.

The students you really have to worry about are the ones that live up to that reputation immediately. The package says there are behavior issues, and the student shows his behavior issues from the first meeting. These are the kids are going to be a challenge because they don’t even care to try to make a good first impression: Are you unaware of the fact that they are making a person brushing.

In reality, though, the really frustrating students are those who have the thick packet and show excellent behavior at the beginning of their stay in the new school. It’s a honeymoon period: they’re feeling their way around the new school and everyone else figures out what they’re all about. This honeymoon period can last anywhere from a couple of months.

Sometimes the portrayal in the packet is incongruous with the student in the classroom. It seems a miracle has occurred. Previous teachers’ comments in referrals mention insubordination, disrespect, skipping class, fighting with other students, verbal altercations with teacher, and all the student initially shows in the classroom is compliance. The temptation is to think that something has happened, that student has seen the light somehow, some way. That the student has realized the dangerous track he was on and has made a good-faith effort to change. I wish that were the case.

It never is.

The honeymoon period will come to an end. The other shoe will drop. If the kid has been described as insubordinate, insubordination will rise to the surface sooner or later. There are few miracle transformations an education.

We’re dealing with the soon in like that right now. The really frustrating thing about it is that such students have shown themselves capable of successful behavior. It suggests the behavior, to some degree or another, is a choice. If it is a choice, it’s hard not to feel some degree of negativity towards such students. One wants to say to them, “You shown you can clearly do better; you’ve shown positive traits in the class instead of disruption that steals educational time away from other students. Why? It’s hard not to take it personally that you choose the negative with us over the positive.”

It is of course much more complicated than this. But working with such kids is so tiring: it’s one step forward, three minutes of rolling backward because why step when rolling gets more laughs?

Note: This was dictated on the way home from school to a new speech-to-text app I’m trying out. I think I’ve edited out any nonsense resulting from unavoidable technical glitches, but I’m too tired to give it another read to check…