25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (5 page)

Reflective scenarios of students’ worst experiences with a teacher and teachers’ worst treatment of students, when used as a teaching strategy, can be effective in a variety of educational contexts. They may be particularly useful in professional development seminars, staff development workshops, and education courses. In professional development seminars, they provide real-life examples of undesirable teaching techniques, strategies, and their effects. Working through the scenarios informs students of the psychological minefields present in the intangible environment of the classroom. The solutions and recommendations literally provide them with a map to help them successfully navigate the academic terrain. A sample staff development workshop would involve discussion, interpretation, expanding and building on scenarios, an exchange of personal experiences, and using these scenarios as an intervention or a preventive measure. A sampling of courses that could effectively incorporate reflective scenarios are: Educational Psychology, Classroom Organization and Management, Curriculum and Instruction, Academic Behavior Management, Instructional Strategies, Learning Theory and Classroom Practices, Social Foundations of Education, Sociology of Education, and Teaching Labs. In my Educational Psychology classes, students used the reflective scenarios and the accompanying analyses to identify good behaviors and strategies to use in the classroom, and behaviors and techniques that they should avoid.

The book is intended for practicing teachers, preservice teachers, professors of education, resource teachers, educational administrators, school psychologists, and counselors. I think it would be of interest to practicing teachers to make them cognizant of their overt and covert negative teaching comments and actions that could possibly have a negative impact on their students. Administrators and other teacher evaluators could benefit from this book because it would help them to recognize dysfunctional teaching practices or the potential for them, and help them give teachers some feedback in this area. The book provides an essential tool for inservice or staff development training. It would also be useful as a prevention strategy.

My wish is that readers will view this book in the same positive spirit that it was written. My desire is that, in using this book, readers will learn from the mistakes of others and acquire some positive strategies and approaches. My hope is that this book will help more teachers become better teachers and subsequently will help more students become better adjusted, successful learners. My aspiration is to enlighten teachers who feel the urge to mistreat a student, with knowledge of more acceptable, positive alternatives. If I can spare one child the hurt, pain, and scars that can last a lifetime, then writing this book was not in vain.

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DISCIPLINE

“Class, who can tell me what I have preserved in this jar? No, it’s not a pig or a baby cow . . . it’s the last student who got caught cheating on one of my tests!”

Mistake

1

Inappropriate Discipline
Strategies

SCENARIO 1.1
Actions Scream Louder Than Words

The worst experience I had with a teacher was in the sixth grade. She wasn’t a bad teacher but all the kids hated her. I don’t recall her being that mean except when the kids were tormenting her. I guess that’s why we didn’t like her. She would get so upset that her face turned red. She would either yell at the top of her lungs or just sit there and ignore us for the entire day. Her name was Mrs. B. and now that I think back she was probably a really nice lady.

Well, the worst day was right before Christmas day. We asked her if we could sing her a song. She said yes. The song went:

Joy to the world, Mrs. B. is dead,

We barbecued her head.

Don’t worry ’bout the body,

We flushed it down the potty,

And round and round it went,

Round and round it went.

The look on her face just killed me.

The two extreme discipline strategies used by this teacher invited the tormenting that she received. She either yelled at the top of her lungs or ignored the students for the entire day. Both behaviors signaled that the students’ misbehaviors were having a profound effect
on her. These extreme measures reinforced the students’ behavior. After a while, they realized that no serious consequences would be forthcoming, so they continued to test the waters with this teacher.

Experienced teachers never raise their voices because they know that once you become a screamer, you will forever a screamer be. Experienced teachers would never ignore students for an entire day, under any circumstances. Ignoring them for a short period of time could be effective in some situations, but not in this case.

I have found that silence is much more effective for getting students’ attention than screaming, especially if this is done at the beginning of the year. I would refuse to start teaching until I had their attention and then I would say politely, “Whenever you’re ready.” That was a very effective strategy for me. Gagne (1977) emphasized the importance of getting students’ attention before teaching. I have found that keeping students engaged and moving smoothly from one assignment to the next leaves little time for them to misbehave. If students are working on meaningful assignments in an environment of mutual respect, there is little need for the acting out that is apparent in this scenario. Wise teachers would work to establish warm feelings and mutual respect. In this scenario the rapport in the classroom had deteriorated to a level bordering on total disrespect. At this point the teacher had nothing to lose. She could have laughed at the cruel little ditty, thereby dispelling any effect it was supposed to have on her. Her nonverbal behavior indicated that she was mortified, which would encourage more ditties in the future. Charles Galloway (1977) found that the nonverbal behavior of the teacher has a significant impact on the classroom atmosphere.

SCENARIO 1.2
Clean in Thought, Word, and “Backtalk”

My twin sister and I were in first grade. We spoke little English and we were both in the same class. One day the teacher asked my sister a question that she was not able to understand. The teacher called her “dummy.” I answered the teacher back by telling her that my sister did not understand her. The teacher felt I was talking back and she took me to the bathroom to wash my mouth with soap. I did not question her again, but I remember feeling hurt. I could not understand why she would not try to understand. We were also seated in the back of the classroom.

This worst-experience scenario is like a porcupine; it has many sticky points. One point was asking a child who spoke little English a question in English and demanding that she understand. To add insult to that linguistic injury, the teacher ridiculed the child and called her “dummy.” Another point was punishing the twin who was trying to explain her sister’s predicament. A particularly sticky point was
using an unconventional punishment for a perceived insubordination. The most damaging points were the deeply hurt feelings and the bewilderment felt by the child. This teacher’s reaction and behavior suggests a bias toward non-English-speaking children. Finally, placing these children in the back of the room was, if not intentionally malicious, at the very least, thoughtless and insensitive.

Competent, mindful teachers would anticipate that non-English-speaking children in an English-only classroom might have special needs and would try to accommodate those needs. These teachers would have thanked the twin who offered an explanation rather than perceiving it as “backtalk.” The notion of “backtalk” suggests that the teacher thought of herself as the ultimate authority whose words and actions should not be questioned. “Backtalk” is a throwback to turn-of-the-century education in which children were not supposed to speak unless they were spoken to. Washing out the mouth is an obsolete, old-fashioned practice of showing disapproval when a child says something that is considered improper. In this case, the child was appropriately defending her sibling and did not deserve any type of punishment. These children were apparently innocent of any wrongdoing and the pain and humiliation that they had to endure was inexcusable. Seating the children in the back of the room may not have been intentionally malicious, but the discerning professional would quickly recognize that this seating arrangement would be problematic for non-English-speaking children.

SCENARIO 1.3
Nose, Toes, Anything Goes

My worst experience was in the fifth grade. My teacher, Mr. A., could not keep order in the class, so he used very extreme types of punishment. I would have to stand on my tiptoes with my nose in a circle on the blackboard for talking, or I would have to write 500 times, “I will not talk in class.” I was a good student and very tenderhearted.