One of the most powerful traits of the great teachers I have
known is the ability to reestablish contact with students with whom they have
had an issue and had to perform some type of behavioral intervention, whether
it was a verbal desist or removal from
the classroom. This is where ego awareness becomes something that can save the
academic life of a child. The ego thrives on kids who struggle. It feeds on the
power that comes from banishing them; from reporting them to a higher authority,
or regaling their baseness in the faculty lounge.
In the article “The
Power of Personal Relationships” my coauthor and I wrote about the need to
send a message to the offending student that the incident is in the past; there
have been consequences and we need to move on. One of the worst reactions to a
child’s misdeeds is what I often heard that the student was not going to be allowed
back into class unless he/she apologized to the teacher and to the rest of the class. This is the classic case where two
egos are better than one. Typically, the administrator ends up mediating a
lose-lose situation. The student may wind up back in class, but the damage is
usually irreparable.
The ego believes that if we don’t show students that we are
in control, all hell will break loose. “When we were in school, this kind of
behavior wasn’t tolerated.” The ego loves “no tolerance” policies. There is no
place for forgiveness there.
One of the toughest things a teacher has to do is to
reestablish contact with a student who has experienced a negative adult-student
interaction, especially if the intervention required the student to be removed
from class. The ego wants revenge, retribution – the ego wants submission from
the perpetrator. Teachers have to
recognize this – it is not the best way to help children. We need to
reestablish a positive relationship by inviting that student back and letting
him know that there is nothing personal about the incident and the subsequent
consequences. Students need to not only know this, but to “feel” this. We have
to put the incident behind us and focus on something positive.
Some who read this will feel their own ego start twitching.
“What about the ego of the student,” they will retort. “Where is their
responsibility?” This is not about them, it is about the teacher – the only
person over whom we have control. Dr.
David Simon writes on the Chopra
Center Blog, “With deepened awareness, we can make new choices, let go of
habits that no longer serve us, and commit to doing something different. Remember, we have control over our choices, but not over
the results of our choices.” In other words, it’s about “us” – to the ego, it’s
about “them.”
Feeling the twinge, or stab, or in
some cases the punch in the stomach is the beginning of ego awareness for
teachers. If you felt it when you read this, and became aware that I was the
enemy, the evil one, you have begun to travel down the path. Before we can
grow, we need to become aware – what exactly was I feeling when I refused to
take that student back into my class. The gap between stimulus and response –
that’s where life is lived.
Chopra
says it best, “Forgiveness is a powerful tool for personal healing and
spiritual transformation, but it is a skill that must be learned. By practicing
the steps for releasing toxic emotions, we can make forgiveness a functional
part of our growth instead of just a moral dictate.” We need to be comfortable
with forgiving our students!
