25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them

Carolyn Orange

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781629146874
• eBook ISBN: 9781629148441
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

Avoid common teaching mistakes and acquire positive strategies and approaches! All teachers make mistakes, but when those missteps involve students, they can have negative effects for years to come. This second edition of the bestseller by Carolyn Orange offers reflective scenarios and insights to help teachers learn from examples of undesirable teaching techniques and find better ways to address challenging or stressful classroom situations. 25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them, Second Edition, includes newly updated scenarios containing real student voices and teacher vignettes, as well as the author's prescriptions for better solutions. Drawn from many years of teaching experience, each prescription is aligned with sound educational theory and provides a dash of humor to help the solution stick. The book is organized into six sections, covering: • Discipline
• Teacher-student relations
• Classroom policy and practices
• Classroom management and instruction
• Personality and professionalism
• Teaching style and behaviorExcellent for staff development workshops and seminars, preservice and inservice teachers, and teacher leaders and mentors, this book's real-life examples offer valuable professional lessons while helping teachers better understand the responses and feelings of their students.

1

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.

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 developme...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface to the Second Editon
• About the Author
• Introduction
• 1. Discipline
• 2. Teacher–student Relations
• 3. Classroom Policies and Practices
• 4. Classroom Management and Instruction
• 5. Personality and Professionalism
• 6. Teaching Style and Behavior
• 7. Teacher Confessions of Worst Treatment of A Child: Their Motives and Feelings
• Epilogue
• References