25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (16 page)

There are two very blatant mistakes that are apparent in this scenario. The first mistake is a flawed attempt at ability grouping, namely having the highest grade occupy first chair and the lowest grade last chair. This practice seems punitive and illogical. The second mistake conjures up an image of a helpless small person seized upon by a beastly character. The author’s indelible memory of huge hands encircling his wrist illuminates that image. The teacher violated the student’s personal boundaries when he touched him without permission.

When I was a kid, I can remember an advertisement in comic books about the “skinny 90 lb weakling” that was bullied by a big muscular guy on the beach. The weakling was humiliated in front of his girlfriend. The ad was for an arm exerciser that a person would pull and stretch to develop his muscles. Of course, in the end, the “90 lb weakling” was transformed into a very muscular hunk that returned and beat up the bully and got the girl. Unfortunately, the child in this scenario did not have a magical exerciser that could zap him with muscles that would enable him to get some payback from the teacher bully. Instead, he turned the teacher’s sarcasm and the humiliating laughter of the class inward and internalized it.

There are two possible explanations for this teacher’s boorish behavior. It appears that he was unprepared for his class and lacked interesting, engaging material that was supported with visual artifacts or appropriate media. This teacher’s actions speak volumes about his ineptitude as a teacher and his lack of preparation for this lesson. He was teaching a lesson on foods. A knowledgeable teacher would have instructional objectives (Gronlund, 2000); humiliating a student would certainly not be one of those objectives. This mistake could have been avoided if the teacher had planned properly and if he had a personal policy of respecting students’ boundaries. No teacher should make a hostile assault on a child’s person no matter how minor that assault may be perceived by the teacher.

SCENARIOS 6.6 and 6.7
Stuff and Nonsense

I went to Catholic school. My teacher was a nun named Sister M. J. The experience was if you wrote with your left hand you were the devil’s child. Well, guess which hand I wrote with? You are correct; I wrote with my left hand. She came from behind me and surprised me with a swift slap with a ruler she held fast in her hands. Not only did she physically hurt me, but Sister M. J. verbally lashed out that I was damned for “conspiring with the devil.” A second student recounts, “I’ve been left-handed since birth, but when I entered third grade, my teacher Ms. G. wanted to make me right-handed by hitting my left hand. She also would say the left hand was the devil’s hand.

I remember being in kindergarten. My teacher asked the class to put the hand you write with on the paper in front of you. The teacher then walked around nodding “yes . . . yes . . . yes” and then stopped when she got to me. I had my left hand on the paper. She said, “No, we write with our right hand.” She gently corrected me and placed my other hand on the paper, uniformly like all the other children. At this time, I guess teachers were allowed to do things like this to make their life a little easier when teaching how to write.

The uninformed often resort to superstition to explain and justify that which mystifies. The term
sinistral
or sinister, which dates back to Middle English, sometimes means left, or left hand. For years, some folklore has equated left or the left hand with something sinister or evil.
Two of the teachers in these scenarios were probably taught to believe that the left hand was the devil’s hand or that left-handedness was unlucky or evil. This folklore of “conspiring with the devil” is not only ludicrous, it defies logic and, like much folklore, it is unfounded. Such a glaring accusation is sure to focus all of the shame, hellfire, and damnation lights on the students and practically ignores the teachers’ inability to effectively teach left-handed students to write.

In our society, right-handed teachers and students are dominant and, understandably, instructional techniques and materials are geared toward them. Wenze and Wenze (2004) note that life for left-handed students is full of challenges, equating it to living life as if you are always looking in a mirror, where everything you do is backwards. Their powerful metaphor underscores the need for teacher understanding and empathy to ensure the successful adaptation of left-handed students. Teachers who are unprepared and lacking in the knowledge of ways to teach left-handed students view left-handedness as a deviation from the norm and subsequently a problem. Left-handedness, like some other human differences, is shrouded in myth and cloaked in superstition. It would be interesting to see to what nonsense such educators would attribute ambidexterity or the armless using their feet as hands.

Teachers well-versed in the knowledge of human development know that students are not responsible for handedness. Knowledgeable, flexible teachers recognize that there is no single magical way to teach all students. The prepared teacher will be aware of student differences and will seek ways to address those differences. In today’s educational environment, left-handed students are a minor challenge.

Many teacher resource books offer techniques to facilitate teaching left-handed students. For example, most writing texts illustrate the correct way to hold a pencil for left-handed and right-handed students. In the absence of appropriate materials, ask an expert. Teaching left-handed students should not be a problem and certainly does not require an exorcism as two of the scenarios suggest.

Mistake

7

Personal Attacks

SCENARIO 7.1
Derailment on the College Track

My worst experience was during my senior year of high school. I was taking two English classes with two different teachers. (I was pregnant the previous year.) The teacher for my sophomore English class is who I am about to talk about. My sophomore English class was with a bunch of lower levels and troublemakers. The teacher told us that none of us would ever go to college. I could not believe this teacher was telling us that. She’s a teacher!

The “psychic” teacher in this scenario has predicted that none of her low-achieving students will ever to college. This gloomy prediction is rooted in the teacher’s low expectations for low achievers. Her discouraging statement could make her prediction a reality. Sprinthall, Sprinthall, and Oja (1994) acknowledge that teacher approval is a powerful reinforcer that can shape student behavior. I think teacher disapproval is equally powerful in shaping behavior. Disapproval and discouragement can derail a student’s intent to pursue the college track.

Appearances suggest that the teacher made the comment because the students were behavior problems and were not achieving. Discouraging remarks, such as the ones made by this teacher, may place students in a cycle of discouragement and misbehavior. Some students who are
behavior problems may in fact be discouraged students (Dreikurs, Grunwald, & Pepper, 1982).

Effective teachers prefer encouragement to discouragement. They know their charge is to help all of their students to be all that they can be. This goal is more readily attained when students have the approval, encouragement, and support of their teachers. The student was shocked that a teacher said the students would never go to college because teachers are thought to be the embodiment of student hope and encouragement. Good teachers would not tell students that none of them would ever go to college. They know that these words have the power to destroy confidence, to dispel hope, and to instill doubt. They would rather tell students that the sky is the limit for what they can accomplish, if they are willing to work hard.

SCENARIO 7.2
Risqué Rumor

My sixth-grade teacher, Sister C., pulled me out of class to tell me people were wondering about me; I acted too much like a boy—I should be more ladylike, etc., etc., etc. Why did I have to play kickball with the boys all the time? She made me feel weird.

Under the guise of being helpful, the teacher projected her biased perceptions of the student’s behavior onto the student. She implied that the student was homosexual because she acted too much like a boy. Moreover, she revealed that this student was the subject of malicious gossip. The teacher’s need to discuss this matter with the student reeks of homophobia, an aversion to a homosexual lifestyle. Perhaps the teacher was trying to be helpful, but the student’s reaction of feeling “weird” suggests otherwise.