25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (4 page)

Carolyn Orange
, PhD, is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She has a PhD and Master of Arts degree in Educational Psychology from Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harris State University. She began her teaching career in the St. Louis Public Schools where she taught for a number of years. Her work as an educator has spanned about 25 years and includes some time spent working for two corporations. She has worked as a teacher, substitute teacher, consultant, researcher, and professor in a variety of educational settings: elementary, secondary, English as a second language, Montessori, special education, adult education, art, and college. Carolyn Orange also is the author of
Quick Reference Guide to Educational Innovations: Practices, Programs, Policies and Philosophies
(2002) and
44 Smart Strategies for Avoiding Classroom Mistakes
(2005). The first edition of
25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them
is a bestseller and has gained international popularity. It has been reviewed in India and translated into 3 languages: Thai, Chinese, and Slovenian. She produced a video on self-regulation and has developed a Self-Regulation Inventory that has been used in the United States, Italy, and Canada. She has published articles in numerous journals. Dr. Carolyn Orange was included in Who’s Who Among American Teachers for 1996–2006; Who’s Who in America 2001–2006; Who’s Who Among American Women 2006–2007; Who’s Who in the World 2005–2007. She was inducted into the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame in 2004. She received the Constance Allen Heritage Guild for Lifetime Learning education Award in 2006.

Introduction

Alas, words and deeds that cut deep to the tender core of the inner self leave scars on the soul that can last a lifetime.

—Carolyn Orange

T
his bit of prose capsulizes a problem that occurs all too often in classrooms across the country. Some teachers do and say things that traumatize students, leaving them psychologically scarred from childhood on into adulthood. I use traumatize in the academic context of psychological or physiological effects that an aversive situation has on a person that results in devastating, long-term effects or lasting negative impressions.

When we reflect on our academic past, most of us can remember one or two teachers that we will never forget for a variety of reasons. For some of us it was the super-strict, no-nonsense teacher that didn’t smile until Christmas, or maybe it was the kindly teacher that made each child feel special. Perhaps it was the teacher with the smile in her eyes that believed in us when we did not believe in ourselves. Or, lurking in the shadows of our reflection there is the specter of the teacher who left a lasting negative impression on us through unfair treatment, physical injury, mental cruelty, incompetence, or poor instruction.

Teachers in the latter group have left those of us unfortunate enough to cross their paths diminished in some way. Their overt and covert acts have had lasting effects that have spanned decades for some people. Many adults can remember with incredible clarity humiliating or devastating events that happened to them in second or third grade, as evidenced in the following quotes:

“. . . This happened 33 years ago and I still remember the embarrassment.”

“. . . To this day I remember how traumatized I was and how ashamed I felt.”

“. . . The worst was that when she would yell at me, everyone laughed at me. It still hurts to remember.”

“. . . To this day, I’m still apprehensive about math.”

“. . . This was her idea of an audition for the play. It was very traumatic.”

“. . . I still bear the scars. I haven’t sung in public since that time. . . .”

These quotes are excerpts from the student reflections that are the basis of this book.

The reflections are scenarios of students’ worst experiences with a teacher in elementary school, high school, and college that I have collected from preservice teachers since 1992. I have collected about 333 scenarios from preservice teachers in St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. I became interested in this topic when I taught a teaching laboratory. As a part of the professional development component, I asked students to recall both the best teachers they could remember, and their worst experiences with teachers. Their oral recollections were so powerful that I decided to ask for written accounts. They wrote fondly of good experiences with teachers and they showed some emotion when talking about these teachers. However, when asked to recount their worst experiences with teachers, they did so with such fervor and intense reactions that I felt this aspect of their academic experience should not be ignored. I realized that teacher mistakes are not usually discussed or explored in teacher preparation programs.

Most education classes offer some discussion of positive classroom behaviors that enhance or create a positive physical environment, but little attention has been paid to the negative behaviors that taint the intangible, psychological environment. Teacher mistakes can wreak havoc on the intangible dimensions of classroom interactions that affect the feelings, emotions, and self-esteem of students. If one teaches, mistakes are inevitable.

All teachers make mistakes. By its very nature, a mistake is not intentional. A mistake is an uninformed strategy, an impulsive act, an unconventional discipline tactic, an inadvertent slight, a remark in jest, and the list goes on. Why do teachers make these mistakes and continue to make them year after year? They make them for many reasons. They make them because they are unaware of the impact and long-term effects of their words and actions. Teachers make mistakes because they are unaware of more appropriate strategies and techniques. Teachers make mistakes because they need to feel that they can control their classrooms. In time of crisis, they don’t have a repertoire of skills to draw from, so they do what comes naturally with no thought given to long-term consequences.

I agree with Weimer (1996) that teachers learn important lessons about teaching from hands-on experience or by doing. Surely that includes making
mistakes. Conceivably, teachers can learn valuable lessons from their mistakes, but if those mistakes are potentially damaging to a student either physically or psychologically, then those lessons are too costly in terms of human capital to learn by doing. Canfield (1990) reminds us that we must create classrooms that are physically and psychologically safe for all students. Therefore, it behooves us to minimize the number and type of mistakes made in teaching. As a preventive measure, it seems plausible that the scenarios in this book could provide an important teaching tool for teacher preparation classes. I think a book that addresses these mistakes will provide a useful tool of prevention and intervention for preservice teachers, practicing teachers, and others concerned with effective teaching. There are many books on positive teaching, discipline, and management, but I have yet to encounter a book that seeks to teach from the proposed “undesirable teaching” perspective offered by the scenarios.

I am writing about mistakes, not because I have never made any, but because I have learned from them. I also believe that we can learn a lot from the mistakes of others. The tone of this book is not to criticize teachers for making mistakes; instead, the purpose is to offer a way for teachers to learn lessons about teaching by learning from the mistakes of other teachers.

Bandura (1986) would call this vicarious or observational learning. Using mistakes as a teaching strategy is much like simulation—to learn important lessons a teacher does not have to actually engage in a mistake to learn from it. I recall making my share of mistakes when I started teaching elementary school. I can remember one mistake in particular where my intentions were good, but my judgment was poor. I volunteered to teach a dance class after school for my fifth graders. We were invited to perform at a neighboring high school and everyone joined in the preparations. I designed their costumes. They wore imitation leopard-skin cloth over black leotards. I added a long, wispy, thin scarf of similar material for effect. The night of the performance, I thought it would be dramatic to have the girls hold candles as they danced. It looked beautiful . . . at first. When I saw some of those scarves come dangerously close to the flames my heart skipped a beat and almost stopped. I suddenly realized that I had put my girls in danger. It was too late to stop the performance because it was almost over. I just prayed that nothing terrible would happen. Fortunately, my prayers were answered; my poor judgment did not result in physical injury to my students. I’ll always remember that my students could have been seriously injured and it would have been my fault. I am sure that some of the teachers in these scenarios have similar thoughts and regrets.

This book is designed to present each reflective scenario as it was written. Each scenario is analyzed to identify the key issues and seminal problems. The Rx used in this book is an alteration of the symbol used in prescriptions; in this academic context, it means a solution for a disorder or problem (
American Heritage Dictionary
, 1992). This Rx symbol is used throughout the book to signal the analyses and solutions for the problems in the scenarios.
I acknowledge that my solutions are presented with a personal bias that reflects my years of teaching, my research, my personal experiences, my readings of relevant literature, and my interactions with my students and colleagues. I concede that there are possibly other solutions to the problems presented. However, I have made every effort to present solutions that I believe are based on sound principles and appropriate practice and in most cases are supported by theory and empirical research.

As I read the reflections, patterns of mistakes seemed to emerge from the collection of scenarios. Twenty-five categories of mistakes were identified and organized into the first six chapters.
Chapter 7
explores teachers’ self-report of their worst treatment of a student. Commentary on the teachers’ actions and behaviors is included.

•
Chapter 1
, Discipline, focuses on the unacceptable or inappropriate methods that some teachers resorted to when trying to control their students. There were different variations of physical aggression, alienation, and ridicule.

•
Chapter 2
, Teacher—Student Relations, examines interpersonal relations that involved favoritism, discrimination, personal attacks, mistreatment, humiliation, and inappropriate relations.

•
Chapter 3
, Classroom Policies and Practices, looks at classroom policies and toileting practices.

•
Chapter 4
, Classroom Management and Instruction, details the employment of a variety of inappropriate educational strategies and assessments.

•
Chapter 5
, Personality and Professionalism, explores personal areas such as teacher insensitivity and academic shortcomings. It also includes professional areas such as poor organization and administration, reputation, and other blatant errors.

•
Chapter 6
, Teaching Style and Behavior, investigates teacher bias, unethical behavior, false accusations, sexual harassment, and other inappropriate reactions.

•
Chapter 7
, Teacher Confessions of Worst Treatment of a Child, offers a rationale and explanation of teachers’ mistreatment of students. Including the teachers’ self-report of their actions, perceptions, and motives gives credence to the students’ self-reporting of their worst experience with a teacher in the previous sections of this book. A motive probe in the form of questions and answers is included for each of the 44 worst treatment scenarios. Some critical commentary is offered for each scenario. The benefit of this chapter is that it offers some illumination and understanding of why certain teacher behaviors occurred in the scenarios in previous sections. This chapter concludes with some suggested ways to avoid making the 25 biggest mistakes teachers make.

• The Epilogue introduces the idea of academic trauma being similar to post-traumatic stress reaction and the implications of that possibility.