Last year for the first time I came across a certain problem in my class. I found that the boys elected (in their minds) a leader. Someone they found was cool and then they without question followed this boys behaviour. It was such a problem I had to devise ways to group the kids so that the girls separated the boys. It was a massive pain because that is not how I like to work. I believe in letting children choose. But when you have a child with "power" it becomes a struggle to get the other children to realize they have their OWN minds. After a lot of work on this: Separating kids, getting my prinicipal and parents involved, constantly checking behaviour...I finally got this settled around April and things started to look up.
Fast forward to this year. The leader has moved on to middle school and all the kids seem to have their own thing going on. Until this week. I was gone for one day and they decided to elect another child a leader. Once again the boys fought to sit near this child, to the point where fights broke out. This child is "cool" and must be followed. OY. Why does this happen??? What is this need to find someone to follow? Unfortunately the boys also follow the behaviour of the leader, so of course it's a leader who needs reminders on his behaviour. My Friday was stressful because I now have a little posse of kids following one boy. I had to move kids to new spots because of arguing. Argh.
I'm going to keep my eye on this situation this week and see if it falls or increases. I'm hoping it's a one off fad and they move on. I can't go through another year of "leader" worship. I just won't let it happen!
Fast forward to this year. The leader has moved on to middle school and all the kids seem to have their own thing going on. Until this week. I was gone for one day and they decided to elect another child a leader. Once again the boys fought to sit near this child, to the point where fights broke out. This child is "cool" and must be followed. OY. Why does this happen??? What is this need to find someone to follow? Unfortunately the boys also follow the behaviour of the leader, so of course it's a leader who needs reminders on his behaviour. My Friday was stressful because I now have a little posse of kids following one boy. I had to move kids to new spots because of arguing. Argh.
I'm going to keep my eye on this situation this week and see if it falls or increases. I'm hoping it's a one off fad and they move on. I can't go through another year of "leader" worship. I just won't let it happen!
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