Hello,

First of all, I am not an accredited teacher, and I am 23. So, excuse me for my lack of decorum.

I recently graduated (Physics BS) and I began working part-time at a Sylvan Learning Center as a tutor (need to pay bills). I had experience with unengaged students back in high school as a tutor, but I never dealt with middle schoolers. The youngest kids we get are 2nd graders, and I noticed most of these kids don't seem to give a damn about doing their work (though theres a few that are pretty well-behaves as well!). My strategy was to be nice to them so that they like me (naive?), but everyday I feel only the good kids deserve this treatment.

I have this one kid in particular who refuses to do anything at all. He's a bit of a smartass and he answers with jokes (when asked direct questions), or he's silent when he has no answers. Maybe a factor is that maybe 'cause I'm younger he also has no respect for me (because he gets quiet when our older female director is around him). He's not extremely disrespectful (it's not like he's saying, "You're ugly and look dumb! Haha"), but he takes advantage of the fact that I obviously can't touch him and taunts with a lot of jokes (it's like hes a clown) when told to give serious answers.

Here's a latest interaction:

"If this is too easy for you I can give you something harder" "No" he said "Why?" "Because . . . " "That's not really a reason, you have to give a reason" "It is a reason. My mom says it too....[he said other random stuff about his mom using the phrase"

He said he didn't like school and that these were the things he liked most:

• Watching TV Shows like Spongebob
• Watching shows on his computer
• Text messaging friends and sharing funny videos
• Watching Tik Tok videos

This is not proper of me, but after hearing all this I thought, "Wow. You're an idiot by design." I know this is unprofessional, but it's just daunting and frustrating trying to understand why at such an early age we can have extremely deviant behaviors (some are quiet and attend their work. This kid is just plain disrespectful). I also think, I guess it's part of the job to tell these kids how to behave, but, again, if it's not happening at home, then my efforts feel useless. I feel I cannot compete what seems as a leisure lifestyle, thus I end up telling myself, "Im not your mom or dad, and I've already wasted too many efforts on you." I feel the only way to compete with it is by being very aggressive, shaking the foundations of the students thought, but this would require a violent process (in a metaphorical sense, obviously). Of course, I cant give up on the kid, and am not planning to, but I'm not sure what else to say to him to make him be at least more respectful towards me (I've realized you can't realize on children's parents . . .)

Edit: Thank you so far to all the responses. I certainly lack grace in my post, and I hope you understand I also wrote this post as means of venting. After hearing from some of you saying this can be normal behavior, then I'll just do my best at working around it. Edit 2: I implied that watching lots of TV and Tik Tok was deviant, but I used that word to specifically to describe the disrespectful attitude of the child (some sass and taunts).