Delvin

Time for another profile! Delvin is one of my 5th grade boys, and is very much one of the ones who makes teaching them absolutely awful sometimes. He is what we call “difficult” or “bad” or “obnoxious as all get out”. But he is also one of those boys who acts out to get attention. I can count on him to be talking, singing, drawing, fighting, throwing things, or any number of other disruptive behaviors any time I look over. He’s one of those problem kids because if I give in and yell at him, he gets the attention he wants, and if I ignore it he just misbehaves more. Sending him out of the class or to the principal does very little. Fun.
I know he just wants attention because of days like today, when he came to the library. He behaved perfectly and in fact spent the entire hour I was there talking to me. He would bring over books and point at pictures or ask questions about me and my life in the U.S. His English isn’t great and he has a tough time differentiating between the English and Afrikaans that he has learned, so a lot of sentences come out with incomprehensible grammar mixed with words I can’t understand, but somehow we manage. He walked me home and wants to come “donderstag” (Thursday, I think) to show me a rap his brother did. I’m thinking that if he and I become friends it might help his behavior in the classroom, since so far the only thing that has made any impact is me pulling him aside for a chat about his behavior (don’t get your hopes up, he got better for maybe one class). At least I have him to keep me on my toes and make sure teaching doesn’t get too easy or routine…