25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (6 page)

Mr. A. subscribed to unconventional methods of discipline. It seems that he wanted to create a truly effective deterrent to decrease the likelihood that undesirable behaviors would be repeated. His creative punishment combined physical discomfort, a difficult task, shame, and public ridicule, hoping that this combination would be effective. Mr. A. took an “anything goes” approach to discipline in which any form of punishment was acceptable if it seemed to stop behavior. The psychological consequences of this approach are apparent in the student’s perception of himself as a tenderhearted person who was the recipient of extreme punishment. The student is correct. A good student should not be subjected to such treatment for the minor offense of talking. The teacher could have warned the student and given the
student another chance. He could have offered free time for conversations, telling the students to hold their talk until that time. A more conventional, positive approach was desirable here.

SCENARIO 1.4
Sticky Business

In the fourth grade my teacher, who was fresh out of college, put tape on my mouth because I was talking. She had asked us to stop all talking while working on our worksheets. I did not understand something and asked another student what the teacher had said. She called me up to her desk and put a huge, wide piece of tape on my mouth. I have never been more humiliated in my entire life. I hated her. All the students made fun of me after school.

New teachers who are recent graduates may become very frustrated when faced with the realities of classroom discipline. Sometimes they resort to whatever comes to mind to solve a discipline problem. This is a dangerous practice. Putting tape over a student’s mouth sounds relatively harmless, but such an act could incur a number of risks. The student may be allergic to the adhesive or the teacher may risk injuring the student’s skin when she pulls the tape off. The most obvious risk is to the child’s self-esteem. In this case, the student was humiliated to the point that it evoked a very strong emotional reaction . . . hatred. The instructional strategy is flawed because the teacher demanded that students stop all talking while working on worksheets.

Experienced teachers would recognize a more collaborative approach that encourages talking and interaction to be more effective. These teachers would not put tape over a student’s mouth for talking. They would know the importance of students’ private speech for organizing their thoughts and ideas (Vygotsky, 1993).

SCENARIO 1.5
Nosing Around in the Corner

The worst experience of my entire life was with my first-grade teacher Mrs. S. The woman hit me on the arm or slapped me across the face at least twice a week. I received six “licks” that year as well. I was never allowed to go to recess and play. My nose was completely raw because the teacher would make me stand against a wall. She was removed from service after my mother and a few other moms went to school and complained loudly. The lady did not belong in the teaching profession.

This teacher was very physical. Her tactics exemplified the cycle that the more one uses physical punishment, the more one will need to use physical punishment. In addition, she appeared to be one of those female teachers who had difficulty understanding the nature of the development of young males and their typical behaviors. This is evident in the constant, repetitive punishment of this child on a daily basis. This type of physical abuse is what made it necessary for some school districts to abolish corporal punishment. If this teacher had to make a child stand against a wall every day and miss recess, she was obviously an ineffective disciplinarian. She did not decrease the undesirable behavior.

The constancy of this child’s inappropriate behavior suggests that it was behavior typical of a first grader. Experienced teachers would take a developmental approach to the child’s behavior to ascertain which behaviors are typical and which ones are intentional misbehaviors. Effective teachers would help the child focus on appropriate behaviors as they work together to temper natural behaviors that are not compatible with classroom activities.

SCENARIO 1.6
Sneaking a Peek

The worst experience during my school years happened when I was in first grade. I was an innocent child back then. One day, this girl was looking at my paper during a spelling test. The teacher said I had let the girl look. I ended up locked up in the coatroom. The teacher turned off the lights and left me there. That was the worst experience.

Almost daily, some teacher somewhere falsely accuses a student of some action. The pain of false accusation is compounded when the teacher acts on his or her false assumption. In this scenario, the punishment was extreme and probably traumatic for a very young child. A first-grade child is very imaginative and can conjure up all sorts of terrors lurking in the dark. Leaving the child in the dark room was unconscionable.

In a situation like this, wise teachers would try to be fair and give the student the benefit of the doubt. They would instinctively know that the student may have let the other student look on her paper or the student may not have had any control over who looked on her paper. In such a case, no one should be punished if fault cannot be established. It would have been better to move the student who was looking on the other student’s paper and find out if that student had some questions about the assignment.

The teacher could offer the student who was “cheating” more assistance with the assignment and thereby reduce the need to “cheat.” Good teachers often circulate among students as they are working. The teacher’s presence is usually an effective deterrent for would-be cheaters.

SCENARIO 1.7
Water Sprites Strike

In first grade, a friend of mine taught me how to take the top part of the faucet off of the sink in the bathroom. So every bathroom break we would perform our plumbing techniques and watch the water shoot up from the top. Well, eventually, one of our cohorts told on us, and of course we were sent to the office. The principal scared us to death. He threatened and yelled, and even showed us his paddle. By the end of the event he had two terrified girls on his hands. But to make matters worse, I never told my parents about it and we had open house the very next week; therefore, it wasn’t long before I was in much more trouble. Needless to say, since that first-grade experience, I have never once been sent back to the office.

The students in this scenario were threatened because they were taking the tops off faucets to see the gush of water. Erik Erikson (1963) would say that these children were showing “initiative,” which is a natural part of the psychosocial development. At this stage of a child’s development, educators and parents are challenged to encourage initiative and to help the child understand that he or she cannot always act on their natural inclinations or tendencies. Knowledgeable professionals are aware of child development and will see that the children are showing initiative. These professionals will try to find ways in which children can still show initiative, but will explain to them about water damage and why they should not continue to dismantle working faucets. Resourceful teachers may find a way to rig up a faucet and let the children play with it.

Erikson (1963) warns that unhealthy resolution of a developmental crisis can affect a person later in life. Punishing children for showing initiative would be an unhealthy resolution for the initiative-versus-guilt crisis. There is a grain of truth in this because the adult student that wrote this scenario has never forgotten it and was never sent to the office again.

SCENARIO 1.8
Give a Hand, Get a Hand

I was in private school from kindergarten to first grade. For second grade, my parents decided I should go to public school, so off I went. The first day, I met lots of friends, but I had a problem with the teacher. I was sitting across from a girl who brought nothing with her (no paper, Big Chief, box, nothing!). So, my parents being who they were, I almost had two of everything.

The teacher left the room and told us to sit quietly. When she left, I started to divide my things and push them across my desk to the girl’s. As I pushed, I got on my knees in my chair and raised up to get the things across. The teacher saw me and came up behind me and said, “Do what you just did!” I didn’t understand, so she grabbed the back of my skirt, pulled me up and spanked me (more like a swat) in front of everyone.

My parents never spanked me, not even once. So I was pretty shocked and embarrassed. I told my mother that I was
bad, very bad
.

This caring child was trying to help another student and inadvertently disobeyed the teacher. Although she was quiet and semi-sitting, the teacher saw this as a blatant disregard for her instructions. The teacher assumed she knew what the student was “doing” and her expectations led her to believe that punishment was in order.