Honey or vinegar?

Which catches more flies?

Vinegar

How do you help "at-risk" students?  By beating them down?  By humiliating them?  By singling them out?  By exposing their lack of knowledge to the whole class?

How do you help them?

If you beat them down, won't they just add you to the list of people who don't care about them or their problems?

Honey

My job as a teacher is not to be a counselor, but I do want to have a positive impact on my students.  I want them to look back and be able to say, "Miss Byers really cared about my education and about me as a person."

At-risk kids are set in their ways.  They know how to avoid work, they know how to make you mad, they know how to put up defenses so that you will think they are tough.

I plan to set high expectations for my students.  They will be expected to perform well and will be graded accordingly.

But what about grace?  What about mercy?

I know I'm not going to change all of my students.  I know that many of my at-risk students are going to go their own way, crash, and burn.

But that will be their fault, because I intend to give them encouragement, direction, and discipline that will help them to open up and change, not criticism, fatalistic predictions, and punishment.  Students may not pay much attention to what some teachers say in class regarding content matter, but they will most likely pay attention to what teachers say to them about themselves.

I am going to do my best to create such an environment that students feel safe with me.  I'm not going to belittle them or allow anyone else in my class to belittle them.

I may not impact the world, but if I can impact one kid,

isn't it worth it?