If you are a special education or general education teacher, then it’s a daily battle trying to maintain order amongst your students. The problem is that sometimes a little tough love is needed in order for the students to learn. Of course, not everyone wants to learn and wants to beat to the tune of their own horn.
When it comes to some neurodivergent students, the idea of being in a classroom with a teacher who yells at the class for order at times is a sensory nightmare. I get it, that teachers and administrators need to maintain order. However, I can’t help but bring to mind something that goes through a neurodivergent student’s mind as they deal with this constantly either in one class or multiple classes.
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That’s why I included something that I think teachers and administrators might find particularly interesting. You see, what I saw as a neurodivergent individual at times when I was a student was a constant battle between the teacher and a rowdy class of up to 30 students. Both sides gave me overstimulation and you might say that it was like a battle between two sides: one representing the students who misbehave and the teachers/administrators trying to maintain order and I was caught in the middle of it.
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I am of course referring to the constant battles between Godzilla and King Kong. Looking at Godzilla, he is a character that represents the students who don’t want to learn and instead want to cause trouble. It could also be that Godzilla will represent some students who have other differences such as ADHD or ODD which guarantees that the student will give some sort of trouble.
Of course, it could be that some students think that because of their background and status, they want to give the teacher/administrators trouble. This is demonstrated when Godzilla causes destruction in various cities in his movies like in Tokyo and New York. In fact, the moments where Godzilla was at his worst was when we would have a substitute teacher in place of the regular classroom teacher. When it came to subs, Godzilla had no boundaries and no respect for the substitute teacher.
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As for King Kong, he is represented by the teachers who want to be on the student’s level, but also maintaining the rules and order over the class. Sometimes this includes being firm and pushed to the limit with the class and when the teachers got angry, that was when King Kong would come out of the teachers/administrators.
Hell, there were times where King Kong would go off on the class, either because they were disobedient, not paying attention to the lesson, homework issues, etc. When the whole class got in trouble, I got in trouble as well, even though I didn’t do anything, which in a way wasn’t fair.
Of course, students do tend to not see the teachers/administrators for who they are and will rebel against them like a king or queen’s subjects. In fact, let’s look at the natives on Skull Island who represents the students in the classroom. Let’s be real, some of the natives don’t want to be ruled over by a giant gorilla and will show the authority that they will not bow to them.
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What goes through my mind when I see both sides fighting is these two great forces fighting one another either in the classroom, at an assembly, in the cafeteria (particularly in elementary/middle school), on a field trip, etc. It was and still is hard to process certain situations like this because the noise level of the students and the teachers would often get to me and it is hard to focus or absorb the situation as it happened.
All of this can all be summed up in one word…overstimulation. Special Education and Sensory Friendly students will get overstimulated in these situations. Angry and frustrated teachers/administrators and loud voiced students will result in overstimulation and ruin a student’s day. When we get overstimulated, we are caught in the middle and the more we are caught up in the battle, the worse the overstimulation becomes.
That is why that if students are going to have a hard time in a general education class that is unruly, then the student needs to be taken out for a short period of time and once the situation calms down, then they could go back in.
Let’s face it, students come to school to learn, and teachers/administrators come to teach, and make a living. But there is going to be that one battle that will go on continuously, but there are ways to support the neurodivergent student when those times frequently come.
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Catch you all later!!
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