When the troubles in the classroom are your troubles – how to deal with problems you created

                So you lost it. It happens to us all. Maybe you didn’t sleep well. Maybe you were fighting off a respiratory infection. Maybe you had an argument with your significant other. Whatever the reason, you simply were past being able to be calm in class. Yesterday you may have laughed at exactly the same event, but not today. Today, you yell at the student and kick him out of the room. No ‘please,’ just ‘get out.’

photograph courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey

                You’ve had some time to think about it and now you’re feeling ashamed of yourself. What Johnny did  wasn’t all that bad, besides you were the one that really caused the class disruption because of the way you reacted.

                I hate to think of how many times this happened to me. Most of them I can’t even remember what I was mad about. Some stick with me: the day I got mad at a student for telling a test answer in front of the class, when he didn’t know it was a test question; the day a student started to make fun of my shoes; and the day a student played with the pulley system when I had told him not to touch it. Really none of those events were earthshaking and didn’t need for me to get unhinged about it.

                When I first started teaching I just hoped the students would forget it all by the next day and we could resume our normal interactions. On the surface that is exactly what happened. Yet deep inside me I knew that wasn’t true.

                Ask yourself this: are you still mad at your first grade teacher for humiliating you in front of the class? I am. If I could meet up with her today I believe I would tell her off, even now sixty years later. If I feel that way about something that long ago, how did my student react to something that happened yesterday?

                After a few years I learned that an apology goes a long way to repair an injured relationship. I also realized that my apology needed to be as public as my offense. So I swallowed my pride and apologized in front of the whole class when I needed to.

                Did this make me appear weak to my students? No, on the contrary, I have had students remark how big it was of me to be willing to admit my mistake.

                But what if the student actually was in the wrong? I learned to apologize for overreacting to the situation. Even if I had cause, it did not give me permission to lose my cool. I found more often than not my apology consisted of ‘I overreacted yesterday and I am sorry.’ That was all that needed to be said – short, simple and to the point.

                Through the years I also learned to recognize when I was in left field while I was there. I didn’t need to mull it over later that day. I knew the minute I said it I was out of bounds. I still had my anger to deal with and needed time out. As a teacher I didn’t have the privilege of leaving the classroom for a few minutes. I had to stay there. My only alternative was to ask (demand?) the student leave. When I did, however, I added: ‘until I calm down.’ That took the problem away from the student and put it on my own shoulders where it belonged. The students already knew what had set me off and they also knew it was probably not a good idea to continue in the same vein. After that interaction, I could continue teaching in peace, which is, after all, the only reason for classroom management: to allow you to teach and the students to learn.