Good morning
I am a elem spec ed teacher 20 plus years. I have had self contained but found it difficult as I am not a disciplinarian or a battle axe... I feel too much for the kids and never want to belittle them or whatever. I know giving them consequences only helps them, but still I struggle with this. The past 10 years or so I have been an inclusion teacher which has been ideal. I work with teachers and help those who need more help and even pull out in small amounts of time... every day was diff and I was so helpful to all my teachers and kids and parents... then this year our CSE director mixed the bag and put me in the 6th grade self contained... for the first time I said NO as I am not the teacher for this environent. There has been a special ed teacher who has done this for years and she has control.. maybe not as much compassion as I have but the kids learned. IN just the past 3 days my room is dominated by one boy who thrives on negative behavior. All the kids feed into him as they do not know how to ignore it... so ALL DAY LONG I deal with his behaviors. I have staff coming in to help and a behavior contract will be made... but any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated

I don't know what you have tried already but you could:

- Find out this boy's learning style - is he a visual, auditory, kineasthetic or digital learner. You may find that your teaching style is not fully accessible to him and hence he thrives on bad behaviour through lack of interest and understanding.

- See if you can find out what genuinely interests him (perhaps descretely through a class questionnaire) and try to build this into your lesson somehow. This should get his attention and earn you a little more respect from him.

- meet and greet at the door if you don't already with a positive (and fresh) start to the lesson which should help for you to teach at a more personal level.

Well hopefully that might help. Give those a try and if they don't work ask me and I'll give you a few more.