Posted: Nov 24, 2015 5:12 pm
*content warning - comments below are from someone with limited teaching experience and who keeps his contact with children to a minimum.*
I think your approach was the right one, although I hope you explained to the student in question the importance of taking responsibility for their own actions. Someone might have handed the books to him, but he chose to hide them and he has to take responsibility for that as a would-be adult.
I'm not sure you'd get much by way of a rationale from the children as to the why behind their behaviour. Kids do stupid and thoughtless things without thinking about the consequences or having much empathy for the target of their pranks. I'm not sure how you can teach them empathy either.
It might be worth following up with the victim as to whether they've been harassed further following the lesson, given that kids are wonderful at misplaced aggression and will happily blame the victim for their nearly facing detention, rather than take the culprits to task.
I think your approach was the right one, although I hope you explained to the student in question the importance of taking responsibility for their own actions. Someone might have handed the books to him, but he chose to hide them and he has to take responsibility for that as a would-be adult.
I'm not sure you'd get much by way of a rationale from the children as to the why behind their behaviour. Kids do stupid and thoughtless things without thinking about the consequences or having much empathy for the target of their pranks. I'm not sure how you can teach them empathy either.
It might be worth following up with the victim as to whether they've been harassed further following the lesson, given that kids are wonderful at misplaced aggression and will happily blame the victim for their nearly facing detention, rather than take the culprits to task.