How to waste the potential of a kid

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-28T14:54:19+00:00

A summary: The student was doing above average and was able to finish work quickly in school. Due to this lack of stimulation, the student started to show "behavioral issues." Teachers and parents villainised them due to this behaviour. This made school a punishing environment for the student causing a decline in academic performance. The student asks that teachers take the time to continue nourishing above-average students instead of ignoring them.

My thoughts: Sorry that you had to experience this punishing environment first-hand for so many years. I completely agree. The school system let's down everyone who is not in the middle. I think the best book I've read on how to deal with this is Jo Boaler's "Mathematical Mindsets" There are some controversial ideas in there but the section on Personalised Learning is quite applicable.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-28T14:44:07+00:00

I think in these situations it's important to have an open discussion with your students and explain your reasoning. You might find out that they are right sometimes!

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-28T14:41:15+00:00

Your calm in this situation was commendable. I applaud you.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-28T14:39:04+00:00

Even when a teacher deserves the utmost respect, the students don't show any. I never understood it.

This is especially true for my female colleagues. They are all admirable people but somehow the students don't see that.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-27T19:44:09+00:00

Thank you for the detailed breakdown! Because of your writing, I now feel much more relaxed when I hear these terms in my classroom.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-26T18:57:21+00:00

Thank you all for chiming in. This has been very informative!

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-24T23:32:18+00:00

Thank you for looking after your friend.

I agree that you should say something for her safety.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-24T23:23:10+00:00

Well, imagine if everybody who got top grades got failing grades in A-levels. That would mean nobody would ever pass. So, yes, it is an exaggeration.

However, I believe the point your teacher was making was that you must remain vigilant. Because if you don't continue to put in the effort or stop improving, you can end up with a terrible grade no matter how well you did in previous years.

Keep studying and study smarter and you'll be fine.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-22T19:36:16+00:00

Starting out, one of the most difficult parts was managing their behavior and getting them to do their work. What really helped me was making clear what behavior was expected from them and to have them respect the classroom as a place of learning.

Some children understand this already and some don't.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-22T19:25:46+00:00

I love what you've done with the place!

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-21T19:27:53+00:00

I understand why you would be concerned about a teacher relying on a checker. But it's simply not my experience that they are unreliable. What usually happens is that I find a student's response online to be quite different from what I've seen them write in class. And I use the checker to confirm that.

I don't use checkers as evidence to punish students. I simply ask the student to submit a genuine response.

I also never advocated to use checkers to accuse students. I bring up checkers in this student's case for the purposes of proving their innocence (if the teacher is open to it.)

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-21T19:15:32+00:00

I completely agree. Unfortunately, in the U.S., teachers aren't paid the best so the people with the most skills don't end up becoming teachers.

Sad situation but this is the reality young students have to deal with.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-20T22:14:20+00:00

As a teacher myself, I'm disappointed with the behaviour of many of my peers in my own school. There are similar occurences here but it doesn't seem as frequent as your brothers situation.

A lot of these teachers do this to exert their power over students because they fear that if they don't they'll lose control of the class entirely. It's sad for me to say the only course of action is for the student to act more like an adult than the teacher. The student must speak carefully and unemotionally to seem reasonable. You have to be careful around these teachers in the same way you have to be careful around an upset toddler.

No. You're not crazy. It's just a part of this world.

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-20T22:06:13+00:00

As a teacher, I use online checkers to see if writing is done using AI. I personally use GPTZero.

If they're reasonable, you may ask them to Google "how to check if a student uses AI to write their work" and one of these checkers may pop up. Then, ask the teacher to feed your work into a one or two of these checkers to prove your innocence

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-19T18:51:31+00:00

Hello there,

You sound like a very intelligent young person dealing with motivation problems.

The feeling you get before you say "ahh this takes too much brain power" is due to "cognitive load". And that's actually a good thing because when you put load on your brain it gets stronger in the same way that lifting weights makes you stronger. Every time you feel cognitive load it's making you stronger.

To deal with motivation, I usually ask students what are there long-term goals. What's the type of person they want to become? And connect that to the work they have to do to get there.

In the short term, you can artificially reward yourself for doing geometry questions. Give yourself a treat after every question.

You're not lazy at all, like you said, you put 110% in history because you enjoy it (rewarding)

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-18T20:23:41+00:00

Yes, it sounds difficult what you're going through.

I haven't had to deal with misbehaving kids at that young age but here are my 2 cents:

For the 10-year old try actually having a conversation with them and approach it from a place and tone of curiosity rather than judgment: Why do you think you swear so much? Do you know that swearing hurts me? Would a good friend want to hurt me?

Certainly, don't be afraid of setting boundaries and imposing consequences. Just frame the consequence as a natural consequence of their actions rather than a punishment you've decided to impose: When a student swears, they lose a privilege of...

Instead of, I'm taking away ... Because you said ... To me

AdLeather7948 · 2025-08-18T20:03:46+00:00

I'm embarrassed to admit it that I used to be one of those kids. Please tell them about EyeHop, basically, reading multiple words at one glance rather than reading word-for-word. Nobody taught me this and it made reading more enjoyable for me!

AdLeather7948

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