25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (21 page)

On the other hand, for shy students like the author, being called to the chalkboard is a terrifying experience. Shy students are afraid of exposure and are hypervigilant in their efforts to ward off shame. When they are faced with a barrage of criticism and scornful, disparaging remarks, like those remarks delivered by the teacher in this scenario, they tend to internalize them into a form of “toxic shame” (Bradshaw, 1988, p. 7) that evokes a sense of worthlessness. Instead of these students becoming better performers, they develop fears and phobias about whatever it is that evokes their shame. The author developed a fear of talking to teachers about things she didn’t understand. This type of fear is bound to hinder academic performance, which suggests that shaming may reinforce poor performance.

Reasonable teachers observe a chalkboard etiquette that dictates that students should be treated with respect and understanding whenever they are forced to go to the board. These teachers are patient and helpful to students who are trying to solve problems. Judicious teachers rarely use the chalkboard as a public forum for humiliating students who don’t understand the lesson material. They use chalkboards to help students. The board allows them to see the work of several students at once and to readily see who is having problems. They can help the students in trouble or dispatch other students to the board to help. If students work as teams at the board, it takes the pressure off individual students and increases the probability that students will solve the problem as they work together. Such a cooperative effort minimizes the stigma and shame associated with incorrect responses.

SCENARIO 11.2
Be Still and the Shame Will Settle

In second grade, my gym coach brought it to everyone’s attention that I could not do the required pull-ups for the skills test. This was in front of a gym full of students, several combined PE classes. It was so embarrassing. There were other coaches around, but they did not say anything to help my pride.

An insensitive gym coach focused a spotlight of shame on an unsuspecting student. The coach sought to humiliate her as a reprimand for not doing the required pull-ups for a skills test. He showed unabashed contempt for the student by bringing her shortcomings to everyone’s attention. The poor student, unable to escape the glaring light of shame, felt exposed and caught off guard. She felt an inability to cope with the situation and looked around for adult intervention and assistance. None was forthcoming. She felt an inability to cope with her situation in the presence of so many onlookers. In effect, she was experiencing shame as embarrassment (Bradshaw, 1988). This is probably
what the coach intended. He was using shame as a motivator to get the student to do the required number of pull-ups.

Sensitive, knowledgeable teachers know that shame is not a motivator; in fact, shame can be an inhibitor. Children can internalize shame and continue to feel its effects into adulthood. Good teachers would first rule out any physical reasons that the student could not perform the pull-ups. Next, they might use a multiple intelligences approach in teaching the student to do pull-ups (Campbell, Campbell, & Dickinson, 1996). Using this approach, teachers must believe that students have strengths across content areas and must encourage them to pursue those strengths while minimizing their weaknesses. If the student does not have the arm strength to engage in pull-ups, perhaps she can improve her arm strength by lifting weights or by working out on a rowing machine.

SCENARIO 11.3
Shake, Baby, Shake

My worst experience was in second grade. My teacher would grab us by the arms, shake us, and get right in our face and yell at us. I remember being so embarrassed after she did this. She yelled at me because I was crying about having no friends; boy that really helped. NOT!

The same dynamics that underlie shaken baby syndrome (Lancon, Haines, & Parent, 1998) are present in this scenario. In shaken baby syndrome, caregivers become very frustrated in their efforts to console or quiet a crying child. They resort to grabbing the child by the shoulders and shaking her back and forth in such a way that her brain hits the inside of her skull. The child may suffer a serious injury and, in some cases, death.

In this scenario, the teacher’s actions were the same but the prognosis is better because the children were older and the shaking was milder. The teacher did grab the child and shake her. The child’s crying triggered the teacher’s actions. The teacher apparently lost control and started yelling. There was no sympathy for the child’s friendless plight, only humiliation.

Effective teachers would try to find out why the child is crying rather than try to suppress the crying through humiliation and physical aggression. If they find that they cannot console a child, they know that it’s okay to let the child cry. Perceptive teachers use sociograms (McConnell & Odom, 1986) to ascertain student popularity, student cliques and friendships, and students who are social isolates. Once they are aware of the unpopular or isolated students, they can make efforts to help those students. One strategy might be to pair students to work together to pave the way for friendship. Good teachers might offer one-on-one help sessions on how to make friends. A foolproof strategy for making a friend is for the teacher to volunteer to be the child’s first friend.

SCENARIO 11.4
Girls Will Be Girls

My two best friends and I were in music class and while the teacher wasn’t looking, we wrote the names of the boys we liked all over the chairs. After music, we returned to our separate classrooms and went on with our business. At the time, they were constructing a new building with classrooms, so the two sixth-grade classes were in a portable building separated by a wall and a door that could open up to both sides. About thirty minutes later, our music teacher opened the door and stood in the middle of the classrooms. She told both our teachers she needed to see me and my two best friends, and the three boys whose names we wrote on the chairs. All of us had to go to the music room, and the boys sat there while we cleaned the chairs off. When we were done, we returned to class and everybody knew what happened. How embarrassing!

Three young female students, under the influence of cupid’s sting, felt compelled to express their love by writing the names of their love interests all over the chairs in their music class. Unfortunately, writing all over the chairs is the willful defacing of school property, which can be considered vandalism. The teacher was taking appropriate action by insisting the girls return to the class and clean up the chairs. She overstepped her boundaries when she demanded that the young men named on the chairs come and watch the young women clean up. The teacher’s motives were suspect. What was her purpose, to correct undesirable behavior or to evoke shame?

Understanding teachers are aware of the preteen period where young girls develop secret crushes. The crushes are secret because the girls are so immature that they don’t quite know what to do with their newly acquired love feelings. Most girls find harmless outlets such as diaries and telephone conversations. Crushes are an important dimension of a young girl’s psychosocial development that should be respected. Sensitive teachers would have punished the girls’ undesirable behavior while respecting their privacy and keeping their dignity intact. These teachers know that students should be punished for their offensive behavior but not for their feelings. Prudent teachers would not pull the young men from their classes to participate in the shaming of the young women. The young men were unwilling, unknowing players in the young women’s little escapade; there was no reason for them to be present. If the girls had written teachers’ names all over the chairs, would the music teacher insist that the teachers come and watch the girls clean up? I have my doubts.

SCENARIO 11.5
Tomāto or Tomäto? Pēcan or Pecän?

I just moved to Texas from Georgia. I was in the fifth grade. I was selected to read out loud. I came across the word pecan. I said “pe-can” instead of pecan. My male teacher quickly corrected me and made me feel dumb for saying it wrong even though that’s how I was taught to say it.

The teacher publicly corrected a student for using a different pronunciation of the word
pecan
. The student was humiliated because she was made to feel ignorant about something she assumed was correct.

Knowledgeable teachers know that the phonology, or speech sounds, of the English language are varied and in some cases interchangeable. Words like
pecan
and
tomato
may be pronounced one way in one part of the country and another way in a different part of the country. Either way is correct. These teachers accept the student’s version of the word as correct. Privately, they may make the student aware of the alternate pronunciation of the word, but they will not insist that students adopt their pronunciation of the word.

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