Two of the students in your second grade class exhibit aggressive behaviors. They use aggressive language, name calling, and threats to hurt others. One of these students instigates physical fights and has difficulty following your class rules about showing respect and keeping hands to self

Question

Discuss sources that contribute to such aggression and describe how you might deal with such aggression in your classroom.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Suggested Response: Aggressive students tend to believe they will get what they want by being aggressive. This applies to instrumental aggression to get an object or privilege, hostile aggression to harm someone else, overt aggression to threaten or attack someone physically, relational aggression to damage social relationships, and cyber aggression using social media.
The sources of the aggression may be models they encounter at home. Perhaps family members are aggressive and these children get their way at home by matching the aggression they see in others.
Other sources of aggression may be found in the TV shows these children watch and the video games they play. These are common sources of aggression children are often exposed to on a daily basis in their homes.
In order to deal with aggression effectively, teachers need to be armed with knowledge, skills, and strategies.
• Begin by being a model of nonaggression. A teacher who is able to remain calm and firm can deal with aggression more effectively than one who makes threats and uses aggression to combat aggression.
• Teachers also need to establish procedures that reduce the opportunities for students to show aggression. This includes procedures such as getting into groups and completing tasks without interfering with one another. It includes procedures for accessing materials, taking turns, and sharing.
• Teachers need to make sure aggressive behavior is not rewarded. If one of the aggressive students pushes another to get to a specific chair, the teacher should not allow the aggressor to remain in the chair.
• Teachers can address aggression by teaching social skills. A reading assignment, for example, might provide opportunities for discussing aggressive behaviors, contrasting prosocial and antisocial behaviors, and emphasizing the importance of taking the perspective of the other person.
• Teachers help students learn prosocial, nonaggressive behaviors when they teach students how to work together in cooperative groups. Group procedures help students practice skills such as taking turns and listening.
Text Reference: Bronfenbrenner: The Social Context for Development