Professional Development: Session 4
PURPOSE
The biggest mistake teachers make, consistently, is that they let students know they have gotten to them emotionally by losing their cool and that they have pushed their buttons. We’ve all done it and we’ve all seen what it looks like:
Raising your voice in anger, speaking through clenched teeth, saying things like “I’ve had enough,” or “go to the office, I can’t deal with you anymore” are examples of things we might say or do in the classroom that shows the kids we have lost our cool. Students are aggravating at times, and we are all human, but there is a difference between being disappointed in someone’s behavior and being personally affected by that behavior.
INSERVICE
Consider the following questions:
- Have you ever felt aggravated by a student?
- Have you ever been guilty of “taking the bait” with a student
- Have you ever let your students know that they have upset you on a personal level?
- What happens when a student knows he or she has succeeded in pushing your buttons?
The biggest mistake we make consistently is that we let students know they have gotten to us. We show our frustration and the students know that they won. They are now controlling our emotions. It is okay to let a student know you are disappointed by their actions, but there is a big difference between being disappointed and being emotionally affected.
Remember that it is always okay to hold students accountable for their actions. They key is to hold them accountable in a professional, not emotional, manner.
This obviously is not always easy and sometimes it’s next to impossible, but just like we should do our best to never raise our voice in the classroom, we should make it a point to stay emotionally detached. Raising your voice in the classroom is a major indicator that whatever has happened has affected you personally and emotionally and when that happens, the student knows he or she can control the situation and control how you respond. They will then continue to do so in the future.
Consider the following examples and how you might respond:
- A student is repeatedly making noises. You have asked him to stop but the behavior has continued.
- Your students are working on an independent assignment at their seats. One student is not doing any work.
- A student is visibly upset about something that happened outside the classroom. The situation begins to escalate and you see that is could get volatile.
- A student is upset with you and she lashes out, saying hurtful things to you. Your feelings are hurt and you are embarrassed by the situation.
IMPLEMENTATION
Arnold Schwarzenegger lost his cool in Kindergarten Cop, but it’s not quite as amusing when we do it. So it’s important to remember to have a plan to win the moment and be the professional in the room. There is no magic recipe or strategy but it is a good idea to have an internal mechanism of “self-checking” that helps give you the wherewithal to realize when you might be losing your cool and then helps you to regain your composure and control before you give that control over to the student.
So in the comments below you can either discuss one of your own methods and whether or not it is effective, or you can reflect on a situation in which your emotions were affected in the classroom. Take some time over the course of the rest of the year to pay attention to how you react to certain things that happen in the classroom and think about the outcomes. A comment below is worth an hour of professional development, but this something that we all need to get better at from time to time.
As always thanks for reading!
