Sunday, December 19, 2010

Teacher Effort Is Linked to Difficult Students' Inherited Traits

As most often, not an either/or situation. I tried teaching, and was not able to control the classroom, although I like the young people. Some people have a more effective personality for such things.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101216122016.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2010) — Challenging students take up more of their teachers' time -- and the difference between a tougher student and an easier one appears to be genetic, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study looked at young twins in the U.K. and asked their teachers how much of a handful they are.

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The researchers found that children who were more challenging at age five required more teacher effort at age 12. They also found that it's something about the children that makes it that way -- something heritable. They can't tell what it is, but they can tell it's there, and that their challenging behavior isn't, for example, the teacher's fault.

"What happens in the classroom isn't just a function of the teacher. It's also the kids who are in the classroom," says Houts. And it's possible to make life easier on teachers. It might be smart to spread the challenging students evenly between classes, for example.

Also, parents and teachers should consider working with children early on their challenging behaviors, so they don't cause as much trouble for teachers later. "If a teacher has to take time out to give individual attention to five challenging kids in her classroom, she can't focus on the whole classroom," Houts says.

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