Case Study.

Mr. Ward had been teaching 9th grade English for four years and he figured he’d seen just about everything by now. He’d tried his best to have an understanding with all his students; and made an agreement that he would respect them as much as they respected him. He made sure to never raise his voice and when he addressed them, he called them by their last names.

He tried his best to be a friend to his students as well as a teacher. In the past couple weeks; he’s noticed a change in one of his students, Stacy Kitts. She didn’t have the best grades, but she was a hard worker. He’d noticed that she’s been spending a lot of time with David, one of the more disruptive students, so he attributed her actions to that. Mr. Ward and David had met previously and Mr. Ward had written David off as “too much to handle.”

One day, Stacy came into class upset, and refused to do any work. She wouldn’t stop talking to her peers and continued to be a distraction to the rest of the class. Mr. Ward tried to reach out to her but she wasn’t responding. Halfway through the class, Stacy and Jennifer got into a verbal altercation that, with enough time, would have escalated into something physical. Mr. Ward was fed up and decided to have Stacy escorted to the dean’s office because there was no way he could have continued his lesson with such a distraction.

The next day, Stacy approached him, obviously annoyed,

“Mister, why did you kick me out yesterday?”
“”I didn’t want to Ms. Kitts,” Mr. Ward replied, “But you made it impossible to continue the lesson.”
“You don’t understand mister”
“No, you don’t understand Ms. Kitts. I’ve done nothing but try and help you and be a good teacher for you, and look how you pay me back?”
“No, it’s not like that mister, you see… David…”
“I don’t want to hear it” he interrupted.
“But mister Ward…” she began.
“No Stacy. Now if you can respect me and the rest of the class, we’ll be glad you have you back. If not, I’m sorry but you’ll have to find somewhere else to stay for the period.”
“See?! Yall never understand!” Stacy yelled as she stormed out of the classroom.

• What are the issues in this case?
• What could Mr. Ward have done differently?
• Do you feel teachers take too many problems more personal rather than realizing that adolescents have outside lives as well?
• How was Stacy wrong in the situation and what could she have done to avoid bumping heads with Mr. Ward?