25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (37 page)

SCENARIO 16.11
Turning a Deaf Ear to Bullyragging

When I was in the sixth grade I was attending a new school and found it difficult to fit in. I was constantly tormented by a group of girls. They started calling me Miss Perfect and soon it caught on and everyone in my class was doing it. I told my mother about it and the next morning she was talking to the teacher about it. I’ll never forget the lack of interest that the teacher showed. Needless to say, she did nothing about putting an end to it. That was the worst year of my life and I was 12. I transferred to another school the following year. As a teacher, I will never tolerate this behavior and will try to put a stop to this type of “bullying.”

Bullying has two faces as evidenced by this scenario. Calling the student “Miss Perfect” seemed on the surface to be harmless, but considering the context in which it occurred and the student’s impervious pleas for help, this places this namecalling in the same category as other offensive forms of bullying. This form of bullying is sometimes referred to as bullyragging. Turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to bullying is a luxury that teachers can no longer afford. Bullying has many negative consequences such as teen suicide, student alienation, school violence, and an increasing drop-out rate. Society is demanding that schools become more accountable in dealing with a bullying situation.

Caring, conscientious teachers recognize that bullying manifests in a variety of forms. It is not just fighting or calling students bad names, sometimes it’s calling students good names that are meant to be uncomplimentary. Bullying is any behavior that makes a child feel tormented such as in this scenario. Bullying is where a child endures continuous harassment or student-perceived aversive behaviors on a regular basis. This includes but is not limited to name-calling, particularly special names coined for a certain child, such as “Miss Perfect” in this scenario. Matters are worsened when no one intervenes. It is typical of bullying situations that bystanders seldom say or do anything to intervene because they are afraid, they don’t want to get involved, or they are afraid that their intervention will not make a difference. Some bystanders don’t intervene because they enjoy the tormenting and aggression. They are often empowered by the bully and some of them join in the tormenting behavior. Teachers who don’t intervene are a part of this bystander effect. They allow bad things to happen to children because of their indifference. The astute teacher knows that intervention is the key to dismantling a bullying situation.

Savvy teachers are constantly on the alert for less-popular children that are the outsiders and are not a part of the school’s “in crowd.” Students in the in crowd are often cruel to outsiders and those perceived to be weaker than they are. Thompson, and Cohen (2005) suggest that there is a culture of cruelty in American schools that perpetuates stress and anxiety for the victims of the in crowd. Teachers that recognize the less-popular victims of the in crowd can alleviate the plight of these victims by befriending them and giving them positive recognition. As the adage points out, “You are nobody until somebody loves you.”

Caring teachers have a moral obligation to recognize and stop bullying immediately. They should make it clear that there will be no tolerance for bullying and there will be severe consequence for those engaging in bullying behavior. There is no margin of error for failure to address bullying. The damage resulting from constant bullying can be permanent and in some cases, deadly. Persecuted, alienated children have been known to strike back in violence or to turn their pain inward and end their lives. Teachers must take up arms, in a sense, and aid students in the psychological battle against powerful peers who wish to victimize others. These teachers effect change by teaching students to love and respect each other, by empowering the disempowered, and by dousing any flickers of bullying behavior immediately, whenever, wherever, and in whatever form it appears.

Mistake

17

Academic Shortcomings

SCENARIO 17.1
Shame and Punishment

My worst experience with a teacher was my first-grade teacher. She sent me to the corner and didn’t allow me to be a helper (chalkboard cleaner) because I could not write my name correctly. I was devastated and felt ashamed of my incompetence. I also was extremely nervous the remainder of the year.

This teacher is confused in her assumption that “not learning” is a punishable offense to be punctuated by shame and deprivation. According to information processing theory, several exposures and repetitions of material are necessary to encode information into long-term memory (Woolfolk, 1998). Good teachers know that some young children have more difficulty learning skills and concepts than do others. They are aware that cognitive development varies in children (Piaget, 1952) so they expect variation in children’s classroom performance. There are so many traditional and innovative ways to help children learn to write their names that punishment need never have been an option. Effective teachers are aware that shame is not an effective motivator. Competent teachers would have used some writing readiness activities or some one-on-one instruction to help their students practice. They would try not to discourage their students by shaming them. Instead, these teachers would empower their students by praising their efforts and inspiring them to do better the next time.

SCENARIO 17.2
Ducking the Stoning Incident

When I was in second grade I had a problem with two young boys who were in another class. During my PE class they would throw rocks at me. One day I told my teacher what they were doing and she did not believe me. She told me to stop acting like a baby and she did nothing to help me out.

In biblical times stoning, or throwing rocks at a person, was an act of violence that was used to kill someone. Although the students’ rock throwing is on a smaller scale, it is still an act of violence. The teacher ducked her responsibility in the rock-throwing incident and blamed the victim. Her lack of action sent some negative messages and paved the way for some serious consequences.

One negative message was that the student was unimportant and not worthy of protection. The teacher’s indifference added psychological insult to the victim’s physical injuries. The teacher’s indifference sent a message to the young men that there were no consequences for their violent, antisocial actions. This message has serious potential consequences for the young males. By successfully participating in minor misbehaviors, they may get the impression that it’s acceptable to engage in inappropriate behavior. Kauffman (1989) found that boys are more likely to be discipline problems than are girls. Ignoring the young boys’ behavior places them at risk for engaging in more serious delinquent or criminal actions.

Although the teacher managed to duck the rock-throwing incident, she might have had a little more difficulty ducking a lawsuit if the young men had injured the student. The school has a responsibility to protect students by preventing or punishing serious discipline problems. The teacher placed herself, the school, the victim, and the perpetrators in jeopardy by ignoring this act of violence.

Sensible teachers act on misbehavior immediately. Gottfredson (1984) stressed the importance of communicating to students that they must obey school rules. Otherwise, schools run the risk of communicating to errant students that misbehavior is sanctioned. Responsible teachers know it’s important to act immediately, before misbehavior escalates into delinquency. Good teachers try to prevent misbehavior; they punish inappropriate behaviors and get parents involved as much as possible. Creative teachers can find ways of teaching prosocial behaviors that effectively diminish antisocial behaviors.

When I was teaching elementary school and students hurt other students, they had to apologize and make their victim feel better. I would have them wipe their victim’s tears, get their victim a drink of water, and in some cases, rub the child’s hand and ask if he or she felt better. Most of the time, both students would end up smiling or laughing. Sometimes, I would make the perpetrator the victim’s protector for the rest of the day.
I tried to do this in a humorous way. It worked for me. Sometimes students would give their own genuine apology and they would play together at recess.

Years ago I visited a classroom that had a rule posted that said, “Hands are for hugging and for loving.” I was really impressed with the prosocial message in this rule. My hope is that more teachers will adopt prosocial rules for their classroom that extends beyond the traditional “Don’t do this and don’t do that.”

SCENARIO 17.3
A Know-a-Little and a Know-It-All

I cannot pinpoint a specific negative experience. The general ideas that come to mind include a teacher who did not know her content area as well as I did as a student. We often had arguments about answers that I would win. Another teacher told students they were “misguided and wrong” if they did not agree with his interpretations of history.

Some above-average students have an overinflated sense of what they think they know. In some cases they’re not teachable because they think they know more than the teacher knows. On the other hand, sometimes these students are correct; sometimes they do know more than the teacher knows about the content area. Some teachers have an overinflated sense of what they know about their subject and fail to adequately prepare for their lessons. I was supervising a student teacher who found herself in the embarrassing predicament of not knowing some fifth-grade math. She informed me later that she was so sure that fifth-grade math would be easy that she didn’t bother to prepare for the lesson.