When it’s not working

Slow down. Talk it out. Take stock. Get on the same page.

When you have one of those moments with a student and you can feel the illusion of your leadership disappear, it can be a scary moment as a teacher. If you’ve done it right, and often, even if you haven’t, students accept the power dynamic in the classroom. The teacher calls the shots.

In my class, I’ve found it helpful for it to be the teacher calls the shots they need to, and they make the deciding call in a tie when power sharing is appropriate. These are my kids, sure, but they’re my coworkers, I’m with them more than with any adult in my life.

Sometimes, though, even though you need them to do something, you’ll have that student — or students — who shut it down. They refuse. They accept all consequences offered. What do you do? What do I do?

A fire needs fuel to burn. That’s wood and oxygen. A kid’s fire needs fuel, too. Often, that’s attention and pressure. In the case that I’m thinking about — but being vague about out of respect for a student — if I had kept him in the classroom and told him what he was going to do because I’m the teacher and he’s the child, we would still be arguing now, or I’d have been on the phone talking to his parents. And yes, maybe his parents should know, but if he and I can solve it together, isn’t our relationship better if we solve it instead of Dad solving it?

So I get quiet, and depending on the situation, I get more direct, but calmer, and I say, “Hey, we need to move this out of the classroom,” and I guide the situation away. We talk, I ask about what’s going on for him. If he’s feeling cornered, he’ll be defensive, so I get the feelings out, let him feel more open. I talk about my needs. If it’s going well, I acknowledge that I don’t like the way he’d been handling things, but say, “Let’s figure out how to get this done as best as we can, huh?”

This doesn’t always work*, but just like driving through a crowded neighborhood, you need to slow down when driving through big emotions. Make sure your student feels respected and cared about, get on the same page with them, and you can often get them on board by figuring out what you can do together.

*Oh boy, it’s a bunch of stories for another morning, but I’ve definitely had some kids where I really had to expand that process, If a kid comes from untrustworthy (to them) adults, it’s going to take days, weeks, or months, before they’ll trust you to go through this whole bit. Just like getting that stray cat in your neighborhood to let you pet it, trust often comes slow to kids who’ve been really hurt.