25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (60 page)

For additional ideas, see
44 Smart Strategies for Avoiding Classroom Mistakes
(Orange, 2004).

Epilogue

A
fter examining and analyzing hundreds of students’ scenarios that depict their worst experience with a teacher, I have concluded that students may experience varying levels of academic trauma, depending on what was done to them and on their predisposition to react to such mistreatment. Many of the student scenarios appear to meet the criteria for posttraumatic stress reaction. Students as old as 56 remember traumatic events that happened to them in first grade. Wetting their pants in the presence of the class is a common event that is often recalled. Many of the students reported flashbacks where they feel like they are reliving the event. Some report triggers such as the smell of juicy fruit gum or chalk, plaid pants, and long red fingernails that evoke a memory of the event. Many will avoid certain subjects or activities because they connect them with the event. The long-term negative effects of academic trauma underscore the importance of the need for good, healthy student–teacher interaction. Teachers must shed the legacy of punitive, teacher-centered educational practices of the past and unshackle their hearts and minds to embrace a more caring, student-centered plan for the future . . . a plan that will restore the psychological balance in the classroom and end academic trauma.

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