NCBehavior

I had a young man in my class that wouldn't do anything that you asked him to do. It wouldn't matter what you threatening him with he just wouldn't do anything. He'd give you a look that just made you want to scream, but you couldn't.
I found out that this student had a lot of problems at home. He needed the attention of being asked to do things, he needed the attention of being scolded in front of the whole class. When I realized that attention was what this boy wanted, I did what the textbooks said to do. I changed the negative attention into positive attention. Every single time I caught him doing something that I wanted him to do, or just doing it in the way I wanted *Like raising his hand QUIETLY* I would praise him, and then call on him for the answer. This didn't change everything. I then decided to make up the game where if he did some work for me, he would be able to come and talk to me for a little while. Then it became he could only tell me one thing, and I would tell him one thing. Then it became he had to complete the entire assignment. I even went as far as to let him tell me something before he went out to recess, if he had been participating in class for that whole section of time beforehand.
I can't tell you what wonders this worked. Of course I still had to remind him from time to time, but the reminders were things like touching his shoulder, or walking close to him and making eye contact, or just reminding him of the page number that we were on.