ABSTRACT
Belinda teaches full time at a specialist unit for students who have been excluded from mainstream school on account of their behaviour. Belinda has responsibility for teaching a small group of six students, aged 12-13. She has developed an effective working relationship with four of the students but regularly experiences problems with two of the boys, Joseph and Toby. This is not an easy job and Belinda’s manager really admires her commitment to these young people, her
resilience and her endless patience, but he can’t help wondering whether Belinda, herself, sometimes incites or inflames the conflict, which seems to feature regularly in her classroom. For example, Belinda has been heard to make rather insensitive and thoughtless remarks on occasions, suggesting a lack of awareness. Read the following scenario to see if you agree with the manager’s assessment of the situation:
Five of the six students are working separately at their tables, completing a piece of artwork. Joseph had worked hard for the first ten minutes but is now adopting his usual habit of wandering aimlessly around the room. Belinda tells him to return to his own table but he ignores her instruction. He takes a wet paintbrush from Tom’s table and starts to flick water at the window. Tom swears loudly at Joseph and snatches back the brush. Belinda tells Joseph to return to his table, adding that he is ‘far too old to be playing about with water’. Joseph immediately goes to the basin and starts to fill it with water. Belinda crosses the room, turns off the tap and gently guides Joseph away towards his table. Joseph suddenly resists and returns to the basin, this time turning the tap on full blast. He leaves the tap running while he goes to collect the paintbrushes and palettes from his table.
