Contrary to what is often heard, the work of a teacher is not at all a bed of roses. And even despite all these holidays, holidays and fewer hours on the job. During my adventure with studies, in various fields of study, I have probably completed internships at all stages of education, eventually deciding to work with children in kindergarten. To this day I still remember one of the lessons I had to teach as a substitute. One hour in vocational school. I knew this before, so I chose a topic that was interesting in my opinion, I came up with a way to put it and present it for discussion in a way that would also involve the students, so that the lesson would not be simply talked about by me, and then – full of ideals and good intentions – I crossed the threshold of the room. Well, the lesson didn’t work out the way I planned it, in fact, it didn’t even resemble the dream one. I remember looking at those young men growing up and wondering what I did wrong. I was heartbroken to them, committed, full of ideas, and yet I collided with the wall of indifference. From one of the boys who apparently noticed my dilemmas, I heard then that I wouldn’t worry, because with them you just can’t do that, you need a hard hand. I realized then that working with older children and young people is even more difficult than working with toddlers. Because I absolutely do not agree with it – that in a classroom, even one full of difficult characters, you need a hard hand. However, I remained with the question – what do you really need, then? After all, what I knew so far did not work. And that is why I reached for this publication with a lot of curiosity. Because even though a few years have passed since this lesson and I am at a completely different stage of both my professional work and, more broadly, my life, this question is still sitting somewhere inside me. At that time I felt lost, but school is a place where everyone – the teacher and the student – can feel that way. And you have to act if you don’t want to lose one or the other.

What’s inside the book?

This book is different from many of the pedagogical guides I have read so far. It is based on the assumption that the reason for students’ difficult behaviour is not that they do not want to behave differently, but that they cannot do so. This is a fundamental difference, because in the case of unwillingness we are dealing with motivation, and in the second case – with the fact that the child lacks important skills that would enable him/her to behave differently. The author breaks with the stereotypes that a child wants to draw attention to himself, that he wants to put on his own, manipulates, has a bad attitude or it is all parents’ fault and upbringing. It all boils down to the delayed development of important skills, without which the child will not be able to change its behaviour, even if it is highly motivated.

Another interesting issue is the approach to diagnosis. The author is quite sceptical about the effectiveness of the traditional diagnosis, which is quite general and does not say much about the missing skills themselves, and it is these skills that need to be found in order to know how to help a particular child.

What is more, we are not only dealing here with an interesting concept in theoretical terms. The author gives us a tool that can be very helpful in working with children showing difficult behavior. It is a Late Skills and Unresolved Problems Assessment Questionnaire, which will allow us to approach each child really individually and reach deeply, to the source of a given problem. There can be a lot of these problems, so the author stresses to start with the ones that seem most urgent.

Summary

The book tells the story of a young man who aggressively attacked a teacher, threatened a colleague and then ran out of the school building. On this basis, the author explains not only the mechanism of what happened – from the perspective of the pupil, teachers, headmistress, psychologist and parent – but also shows how a conversation with a child can go on if we really want to help him or her and not just make our will come true.

Interesting, inspiring, original – reach out if, when working with young people, you sometimes feel lost or don’t know why, despite your best intentions, you encounter rejection and difficult behaviour of children.

Where to buy a book?

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