The thrill of teaching is embedded in the young receptive minds thirsting for knowledge. Unfortunately, such delights are often soon put to rest by a few young mischievous sprites that cause havoc in the classroom. With the bloom of adolescence comes the natural urge to rebel against authority. If not checked, such misconducts escalate with time consequently lowering academic achievement and increasing delinquency. To lessen these immediate and gradual adverse effects of student misbehaviours, it is of primary importance to apply well thought remedies.

Intolerable and stress-provoking student misbehaviour such as disruptive talking, chronic avoidance of work, clowning, interfering with teaching activities, harassing classmates, verbal insults, rudeness to teachers, defiance, and hostility- ranging from infrequent to frequent, mild to severe- is a thorny issue in everyday classroom. Obviously, such misconducts retard the smoothness and effectiveness of teaching and also impede the learning of the student and his/her classmates.

Apparently, misconducts are common place among students and every teacher has their way of dealing with such depending on the school policy. However, the chief commitment here is rather in the consistently naughty students every teacher wants to give up on. For such students, no amount of detention, kneeling or talks appeal to their best behaviour.

It may suffice to investigate the root of the problem. Giving up on the student is the last thing you want to do no matter how wayward they are. Expulsions and suspensions are vastly overrated and simply show that a school/teacher has failed. Schedule a talk session with the student not to reprimand him (which you usually do) but to get to know him better. You may discover the root cause of misbehaviour usually ranging from broken home stress, loss of a family member or some really big problem a student shouldn’t really have to deal with.

Once this is understood, the rest will fall in place.

Similarly, always focus on the actions and not on the student. There is an important distinction to be made between letting a student know that fighting is inappropriate and not allowed as well as telling him that he is a bad person for fighting. It is better to help a student see why it is bad to talk out of turn instead of calling him/her a chatterbox. This way, students learn to accept their mistakes.

It is also important to judge students’ actions fairly. It is easy to jump to conclusions with challenging students and assume they are guilty of any infraction they are accused of. Remember to be fair and look at each situation based on the current facts and information you have rather than punishing the "usual suspect.”

Sometimes you can get so frustrated and fed up with a difficult student that you want to hand down a severe consequence for even a minor offense. Remember to save the most stringent consequences for the most serious offenses. Otherwise, they get used to it and you can become a toothless barking dog.

There will be times when you have had your fill of a challenging student and need a break. When that happens, it works wonders to have an arrangement with a buddy teacher to whom you can send the student for a brief time out. This will give you time to get past your frustration point and be able to once again deal with the student professionally. In some schools, a student is sent out of class and left to do as he pleases. This is an indication that the teacher has given up and if anything, he has a right to education in spite of what he might have done.

Equally worth noting is that for such students, quiet corrections are more effective. You should be private in your corrections of your students rather than publicly reprimanding them. This is because public reprimands tend to escalate problems and take away the students’ dignity.

Conclusively, the wise have it that one rotten tomato spoils the rest. If we don’t devise means of dealing with a few problematic students, we not only deny the others a chance to learn but also help to water future rogues.

The writer is a lecturer at The Adventist University of Central Africa