Keeping Your Cool

When students complain, “It’s not fair,” I tell them that if anyone told them life was going to be fair, they lied.  But life isn’t fair; we were not all created equally (although we may have equal rights); and you may have to work next to a person you don’t like, so get used to that, too.  We can still be civil to each other.  This really cuts down on a lot of complaints.

Respect.  Teachers need to model respect otherwise students won’t know what it’s supposed to look like.  That doesn’t mean you let them walk all over you.  Among other things, it just means you don’t use sarcasm unless and until you know the student VERY well and you know without a doubt that they understand that you don’t really mean what you’re saying.  I also ensure that students respect my paraprofessionals.  My “paras” have the authority to march a student down to the office immediately for any disrespect shown to them.  I’ll back them 100% every time.  It usually only happens once a year because word spreads.

Keep as low-keyed as possible.  They really are trying to get your goat and push your buttons; don’t let them.  Don’t take anything personally, even good comments.  The parent who praises you because their child is doing so well, doesn’t understand that 9th grade boys do a lot of growing up during the summer before 10th grade and they usually come back much more mature.  Give credit to the student; s/he needs it more than you do.

“I don’t care.”  Every now and then those words come out of my mouth usually in response to a student who just had their cell phone taken away the class before mine and is now disrupting my class by complaining about it.  The student retorts, “That’s the problem, you just don’t care.”  So I now have to really come up with a better line.  Maybe, “What does that have to do with multiplying a positive and negative integer?”  But even that is sarcastic.  I’ll work on it and let you know if I come up with anything.

Comments

[Pamela Van Uden]

I agree about all of us as professionals and parents it is important to show respect and teach it whenever possible. I was always raised, If you give respect you will have it in return.

[Jean Mahew]

When students tell me about what happened to their cell phone or some similar complaint, my comment is "I hate it when that happens." This for some reason always seems to satisfy them - I guess it because they believe I am showing an understanding. Such a statement allows me to make a comment and then get on with the business at hand.

[Lisa]

I agree that it is very important to keep the sarcasm out of the interaction, even if the comment, such as the loss of the cell phone in a previous class, is completely irrelevant and disruptive to the current lesson. The teacher sets the tone by briefly acknowledging the comment and then redirecting quickly to the lesson at hand. In such situations, i will say something, such as, "I hope that you can work this out soon. Let me know after class if I can be of help." This can remind the student that we do have work to do right now, but that I also care. Even if the student voiced the comment primarily to complain and to change the topic from the work at hand, I want to reinforce that the student is willing to voice a concern currently felt, and I want to make myself available at a later time. I want the student to know that he or she can turn to me for advice or a listening ear when s/he has a concern. This is far better than silently brooding on the concern and then reacting with inappropriate behaviors at a later time. With this comment, I reassure the student that if needed we can work together to solve the problem at a later time, and then we can get on with the lesson. Sometimes, students just move on then and let go of the concern. At other times, the student does come to me after class to adress the concern, and then we can work on the social skills of dealing with the current problem in a positive manner. Sometimes, that disruption in the lesson leads to additional positive lessons!

[Lew]

I think the question was what to do about a student who says, "You just don't care." In some cases I think that can be translated into, "I care a lot about you, and that scares me because adults can't be trusted and I don't want to be emotionally hurt by this person who's always so nice to me."

I used to get this all the time from my "delinquent" charges. I found probing the assertion to get down to its baskic to be a good strategy. So, depending on the circumstances, I might queston the student further, a scnario that might go like this:

T: "Care about what?"
S: "Care about me."
T: "Why do you say that?"
S: "Because you're mean"
T: "Why do you say that?'
S: "You make us do all this work"
T: "Why do you think I do that?
S: "Just to be mean."
T: "Dope, it's because I care deeply about how you turn out. I want you to be successful, and you can't be if you don't know how to read and write and do math as good or better than kids your age."

Caution: Avoid getting into an argument about whether you DO really care about the student with him/her saying, "No you don't," etc.

At this point, a teacher could show the student his funcional level in reading and math, if the results are available, and go on to explain that the student is behind others his/her age. The point in this is to start shaping goal-setting and develop a series of achievable goals, say in reading, that a student can meet. If you have "sequenced reading" or "high interest, low vocabulary" reading materials, this can be easily done. Then, the student can keep track of their performance on a daily or weekly basis by recording his/her progress (self-monitoring) and determining his/her progress on set goals (self-evaluation). The teacher would then sit down with the student on a weekly basis and help him/her determine how they're doing and adjust goals accordingly.

I found this process quite effective. You can say to the student, "Look here: A couple months ago you were reading at the 3.4 level and you've advanced to the 4.5 level, a whole grade level in only two months. What do you think of that?"(self-evaluation/ self-reinforcement).

Caution: Let the student praise him/herself but don't say things like, "I'm really proud of you," because that centers the onus of approval in an external source (teachers, S.O.s) rather than the student him/herself. Instead, a teacher might say, "It looks like you've really made progress here, does't it? What'll be your goal for next week?"

Hope this helps.

Lew

[Doc]

Keeping My Cool When the House is Burning Down.

I have over 30 years of public school classroom experience, a doctorate in special education and teaching experience at three universities and I tell people, “I do not have all the answers.” When they ask me “What’s wrong with our schools?” I do have a sense for what is wrong even though I am powerless to do much about it. Here are some of my cool thoughts that I share with those that are interested in improving public schools:

• Give teachers more authority in the classroom by removing much of the authority currently relegated to principals.
• Give teachers authority to remove a principal with the same regulation guidelines used to remove a teacher – a 2/3 vote by the faculty should be sufficient.
• Forget affirmative action, principals need to be instructional leaders and master teachers with a proven teaching record or at minimum have additional training to shore up deficiencies. The idea that principals are needed to manage a school is ludicrous – professionals (college graduates) do not need to be managed. If a school needs to be managed, then those aspects can function excellently with subcommittees.
• ALL monies brought into the building through any means or received from within. E.g., vending machines, etc., must be under the auspices and control of a parent group in concert with a faculty advisory committee elected by the faculty. The principal can serve as the chair of the committee with one person – one vote rule.
• Every teacher should come into their position with the understanding that they too will one day serve in a leadership role and must take the necessary steps to fulfill that role.
• Principal positions should begin with assistant principal tenure and administrative slots should not last longer than 5 years in total and then the position(s) should be rotated to another teacher within the school or system who has been trained to fulfill the position. It is imperative that the principal remain with that school as a teacher for at least one year to assure that fair mindedness is upheld.
• Character education for students MUST be part of the K-12 curriculum and reinforced consistently throughout all grade levels. Teaching or modeling respect in the classroom isn’t worth much without the whole character education package – you might as well try to teach geometry without teaching arithmetic/ mathematics, dumb idea!
• Students do not necessarily need to be governed by a specific dress or standard school attire code but common sense should prevail on what is acceptable and unacceptable – this can be done on an individual school basis with parent-administration-teacher group and where practical, student representation.
• ALL acceptable electronic devices brought into the school by students MUST be registered with the school office and regulations on their use should be in place and strictly enforced – those not registered are confiscated.
• ALL students should be provided a locker – no hats, jackets, book bags, purses, electronic devices, etc., should be brought into a classroom without written permission.
• School boards, as they now exist, are generally a waste of time and the municipality needs to follow the governance of the money, that is, if the Mayor approves the school budget, then the Mayor should appoint the school board – it’s that simple.
• Teachers and schools should not and can not be held accountable for things they cannot control anyway such as a high drop-out rate, students receiving poor grades because of absences or chronic recalcitrant behavior, bad mannered students, requesting new buildings, and recalcitrant politicians who want to run schools – they should, however, be held accountable, for example, for inadequate instruction, not following the curriculum standards, lack of communication to parents, lack of or unwillingness to improving skills necessary to do the job.

I could add more cool thoughts but I generally find these are sufficient to make one pause. Charter schools are not the panacea for America nor are voucher systems – they’re both different versions of the tail wagging the dog. Public schools will not survive by continually placing teachers in a Gulag and beating them down with incompetent administrators supported by schizophrenic politicians. America will soon run out of options for school rehabilitation and it will be too late to undo the damage already done. If you think the cost of education is expensive today, wait five years from now and it will double… How sad…

[Carol Eisenbise]

Thanks, Beth. I'm finding that site RIGHT NOW!
Carol

[Beth]

I have used the same responses to the "It's not fair!".
I get so tired of hearing about how unfair everything is. I teach middle school and figure it's part of the whole 'middle school angst' so I end up using the same statements so often that my students will interrupt me and say, "I know, I know.... We don't get to choose who we work with all the time, but we sill can be polite and focused on our task!"
The comment about sounding sarcastic with your unsympathetic response to the student that complained of losing their cell phone in the previous class made me think of Jim Fay's Love and Logic "One-Liners". If you haven't visited his website, you might find it helpful. Love and Logic is all about being supportive while teaching students that there are logical consequences to their actions and they have to accept responsibility for their part in earning those consequences. Some One-Liners in response to a student complaint are; "Bummer. How Sad." or "What do you think you're going to do?" or even "Don't worry about it right now." All One-liners are delivered in a neutral tone with a sympathetic expression; never heavy with sarcasm. They let the child know you heard them, but can effectively close the door on long involved interactions where the student expects you to stop what you're doing to take care of their problem. I use One-Liners fairly often at home and in the classroom. They even work with my husband!