Based on our experiences over decades, across kindergarten, preparatory, middle and high school kids, we at Team QEDRAK have faced varied instances of the “I don’t wish to work” or “I won’t complete my task” syndrome. This is better known in the education space as “work refusal”.

Understanding this Syndrome

Work refusals are typically situations when kids just refuse to start or engage in the work assigned to them, for a wide variety of reasons (be they at school or at home). They might simply ‘switch off’ and rest their head on their desk or have an anger bout, or close-up with crossed arms, or aggressively state how they absolutely ‘will NOT’ do what has been asked of them. This can be very frustrating for parents at home as well as for school teachers! Especially, when teachers are teaching a well-designed lesson that they thought would go as per the perfectly made plan! In reality, the lesson plans and activities themselves may have little or no impact on whether or not a student refuses to work. There are, quite often, bigger challenges at play that you will read about further on.

Quite frankly, our educational qualification, research and theoretical reading had not really prepared us for what to do when students refused to work. Handling such children required skills and strategies we had to literally develop on the task, while on the move, during our typical days at school. It’s an area that can be nerve-racking, but when overcome, presents some great eureka moments. More so, since we have always been passionate about innovative classroom practices and in our hearts, we truly believe – all kids deserve to learn and feel good about themselves!

It’s important to remember that students who are refusing to work, may actually be reaching out for help in some way, and WE educators CAN be the one to help them. Who can deny that we ALL have bad days here and there! So can kids. A word of caution – just because a student puts his/her head down during a lesson and doesn’t finish an assignment because of a headache, it doesn’t mean we need to sound the alarm! This blog is intended to help teachers get some ideas & tips on handling the students who repeatedly refuse to complete work and need specific targeted strategies to help them overcome these challenges.

What ‘work refusal’ can look like

Frankly, it can be different for different learners in a class. The manifestations of this were heightened during the Covid and post-Covid school-shutdown years. As stated earlier, many children put their heads down, despite all the coaxing and prompting. Other kids may hum-haw, look around and say, “I don’t feel like doing it now”; and some others may just brazenly look you straight in the eyes and say “I’m NOT doing it!” Some others might say

“Can I do it tomorrow” OR they may say “Yes, yes, I’m on it!” and the moment we move our gaze away from them onto the others, they ignore our directions completely and continue doing what they want to do – whether it be colouring, reading, doodling or any other activity they were engaged in. Such behaviour is what work refusal can look like – overt evidences of students avoiding doing the tasks that the adults expect them to complete.

Possible Reasons for Work Refusal?

We can safely say with our collective experience that there is always a reason behind a student outwardly refusing to engage in work in the classroom; and by that we mean persistently refusing to work over a period of time. Most often, we may not know the individual reasons.

• Some students may have history of deep hurt / pain. Although, we may or may not know about the potential trauma.
• Other kids might be dealing with social or emotional challenges at home or in their personal life – like a new sibling born at home, parental discord, death in the family, feelings of loneliness with working parents; to share a few examples.
• Sometimes, children are faced with unpleasantness that overwhelms them, they may have a need to control parts of their life that they can control (like doing work in school or not).
• Some learners might be diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, while others aren’t.
• Other times, a child or teen may truly be bored and not interested in the topics or the way it is being taught.

Regardless of the actual reason, as educators, it is vital at that point to take a step back and understand that the child is struggling with SOMETHING, whether or not we can see it. Thinking in this way encourages us to be solution-focused, which is what really matters in the end, isn’t it?

Read Part 2 by the same name, to learn about how you can cope and what you should absolutely avoid as teachers and parents, if faced with a “work refusal” child. ***