The Effective Teacher’s Secret to Student Cooperation

Teacher by AhavatHaEmet on Flickr

Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to get students to simultaneously behave well and like you? Yelling can achieve the former, and befriending them can achieve the latter, but neither of these achieves both. How, then, do you achieve the perfect balance of the two? Veteran teachers understand intuitively that you must earn their respect and trust by treating them with as much respect and trust as you expect from them. This is not so easy to do, so I’m going to break it down. As you continue reading, keep in mind that even though I frame my techniques and examples in the context of kids in a classroom, the same concepts apply equally well to adults.

In order to control undesired student behavior such as lying and acting out, we must understand what motivates such behavior. Surprisingly, the blame usually lies in how the teacher behaves toward the students. Each teacher responds differently to misbehavior; some more emotionally, and some more professionally (i.e., showing less emotion). The students know what to expect from their teacher, and it is in their nature to try to elicit emotional responses to their actions. In general, these emotional responses fall into three categories: approval, anger and fear.

Approval is a response indicating that the teacher is pleased by a student’s actions. It is a positive emotional response. Well-behaved students seek approval through positive behavior and “fishing for compliments” (e.g. “How do you like my project??”). These students are people pleasers and end up displaying desired behavior primarily because others like it, and not because the actions intrinsically motivate them. The approval response only encourages this mentality. Poorly-behaved students, on the other hand, generally try to antagonize the teacher, and therefore seldom seek approval. Logically, then, we can see that teacher approval is a useless and counter-productive response to student behavior.

Anger is the second common emotional response, and probably the most prevalent. Teachers who take student misbehavior personally tend to respond by angrily lashing out at their students. The well-behaved students seek to avoid provoking the teacher by behaving properly. This is a technique known as positive punishment and is not a very effective way to control behavior. The poorly-behaved students purposely misbehave, because they have been conditioned (usually by their parents) to enjoy the attention and power they feel in response, even though it is negative. Their objective is to provoke the teacher, and they skillfully play her in different ways until they find the most effective ways of doing so. By maintaining a calm, collected demeanor, the teacher can remove most of the incentive for these students to misbehave.

Fear, or more mildly discomfort, is the last common teacher emotion. Many teachers feel overpowered by, and not in control of, their class. Though they will not admit this verbally, their body language tells a different story. Kids are remarkably adept at interpreting nonverbal language, and the poorly-behaved ones learn to control the teacher through skillful manipulation of her fear response. These students seek power and control; when they succeed in breaking down the teacher’s defenses, they feel empowered. Therefore, the teacher must avoid any indication of fear or discomfort, thereby removing the incentive for such behavior. We will see how to do this a little bit later.

As we can see, it is important for the teacher to avoid all emotional displays when giving instructions or directions of any type. In general, people receiving instructions or suggestions tend to evaluate their merit, in large part, based on the emotional undertones of the speaker. Instructions borne of emotion are generally considered to be less rational than those given with a straight face and no emotion. Therefore, people tend to ignore emotionally-based instructions.

Those who do follow instructions given emotionally are generally doing so to appease the instructor. They have not been given an opportunity to calmly evaluate the merit of what the instructor is saying, and therefore never internalize the reasoning process for the correct behavior. Additionally, these people tend to cease the desired behavior soon after the instructor’s emotion has subsided, which again demonstrates that the emotional response is only a short-term fix.

From these examples, we can see that hiding your emotion while redirecting a student increases the likelihood of cooperation. However, it also has the positive side effect of allowing the student to save face when they follow your directions. Students who follow instructions just to appease the instructor frequently feel like they were coerced into correct behavior, and may feel embarrassed when their classmates see them “lose” in a shouting contest with her. If you give instructions amicably and reasonably, the student will not feel threatened. He will accept your advice, because he sees that you care. But the best part about their ability to save face is that the rapport between the two of you is not damaged, and within seconds you can go back to joking around and having friendly discussion with no ill will.

Now that we recognize the need to put our emotions aside when dealing with students, we now need to know how to do so. In the following paragraphs, I will present five techniques to avoid escalating your – and your students’ – emotions.

First and most important is not to take student behavior personally. You must internalize the fact that kids naturally seek to test their limits, and behavior is no exception. They don’t necessarily believe that you deserve to endure their bad behavior, but simply behave poorly because they can get away with it. They would behave identically with anyone else who behaved toward them in the same way as you do. Therefore, you must not personalize their behavior, but rather emotionally detach from the situation and play it like a game. Once you see it as a game, you will suddenly discover a myriad of tricks and tactics that you missed while blinded by your emotion.

Secondly, it is important to speak quietly. I have noticed that students in a classroom subconsciously lower their volume level to match that of the teacher. I once had laryngitis and taught a class in a voice not much louder than a whisper, and the students magically lowered their voices to match. Lower voices also means less yelling, and less yelling is perceived as less emotion.

Third, you must ensure that what you say to them is meaningful and well thought out. Make sure you speak firmly, clearly, slowly and deliberately. When responding to a negative behavior, take a second before you respond, and allow yourself to detach and depersonalize so that you don’t say something you don’t mean or can’t stand behind.

Fourth, you must show them the same exact level of respect that you’d like them to show you. I see so many teachers speaking to their students as if they were unworthy scum. Kids can tell when you don’t respect and trust them, and they likewise immediately stop respecting and trusting you. When you speak to the student, consider them as an equal. Try to speak to them with the same love and respect with which you’d speak to your best friend or significant other. When the student needs to tell you something, give them time to answer without interrupting them, and listen to them. Do not make faces while you listen. These betray your emotional reactions, which we agree have no place in teacher-student communication. Also, it is important to show respect to our students by giving them the benefit of the doubt in all communication. When asking a student to explain a situation in which they are potentially at fault, first assume they are not at fault, and then ask a non-leading question in a non-accusatory tone, with a relaxed facial expression. You will find that the student is much more likely to tell you the truth, even if he is at fault.

Finally, you must remove all nonverbal expressions of emotion. This is probably one of the most difficult of these techniques, as there are three types of nonverbal behavior that we need to be aware of: vocal inflections, facial expression and non-facial body language.

Vocal inflections can significantly change the meaning of what you say. It can show many different emotions including the three mentioned above. Speak with a calm, low-pitched, confident voice and they will respond much more positively. For example, imagine saying “Did you take his pencil?” first with a tone of accusation, and then as if you were interested for purely educational reasons. Notice the difference. Students react defensively when confronted emotionally, but answer truthfully when asked in a calm manner.

Facial expression are usually the biggest giveaway. Make sure that when talking to students you completely relax your facial muscles. Practice different emotional facial expressions and then relax your muscles. See how it feels, and look in the mirror to see how it looks. Pay special attention to your eyebrows, forehead, and corners of your mouth, as these areas betray many emotions such as surprise, anger, disappointment, concern, etc. One important note is that smiling while you give instructions to a student can indicate fear or discomfort. Even though you may interpret it as being friendly, they interpret it otherwise: Consider chimps and other primates. When they’re scared, they draw back their lips and expose their gums. We manifest our fear and discomfort in much the same way, even though we may refuse to admit it.

The last nonverbal channel of communication that you must monitor is non-facial body language. Make sure you keep your hands out of your pockets and in the open. This shows that you have nothing to hide and are not afraid. Additionally, always make sure that you make and maintain eye contact with the student. Don’t look away while you are talking to him, and don’t let him look away, either. Speaking with eye contact gives your words much more weight.

Now that you have a collection of techniques to build respect and confidence between you and your students, you can start implementing them. Once you begin to do so, you will begin to see changes immediately. Students will be truthful more often as they realize you are probably not going to overreact in response. They will lose interest in trying to incite and anticipate emotional reactions from you, which will cut down on negative behavior. Students will save face, and as a result they will appreciate and respect you. You will become the teacher they look forward to seeing, and your class will become a treat for them.

Advertisement