Rabbi Mordechai Z. Hecht – www.chabadchinuch.org
I’ll start right away by admitting yelling was never one of my character challenges, but I've learned a thing or two over the years. As a school teacher, a principal, as a camp counselor, head counselor and camp director for years, it's not that I wasn’t toobad—it’s that one) I imagined myself on camera, and two) I was always cognizant of the child's mind, heart and life-situation - which all too often is the reason for a child’s behavior.
As life progresses though? Ugh. Much more. I see the infinite struggle with technology and the average child level of selfishness and "self-expectancy". So I know the struggle a teacher or parent may face each day. I know a lot of us struggle even if you’re a great teacher, even if you’re a swell person most days, sometimes it all gets to be too much and you just snap.
I remember the teacher in the room next to me one year, a person I completely adored. This teacher had a perfectly fine relationship with our students, but once or twice a week…Hooo-WEE! I could hear it through the walls, often accompanied by the slam of the classroom door, and it turned my blood to ice. If my students and I happened to be doing something quiet, we would all kind of freeze up listening to it. It never lasted long, but I always felt bad for my colleague during those moments. I knew a switch had been tripped and it wasn’t this person’s normal way of dealing with students.
Similar to a neighbor I once had, his mom would lose it, all the time. It frightened us.
And if this person was anything like me, they probably felt pretty awful when it was all over. Once the moment has passed and they have had their little tantrum, they're ashamed of the spectacle they have made.
Losing control is not a proud moment for anyone. But we can get a lot better over years, time should train us. I want to share what has worked for me, along with some research and ideas from other people that has worked and proven productive.
By way of introduction:
We, my brothers and I had a principal in Elementary, one of many great educators I had growing up, but this man was in a league of his own - Rabbi Goldstein OB"M. In the morning he would bring us to other classrooms to answer Amen to the other classes making brochos, teaching us the power of Amen with love and affection. But then he would patrol the hallways and common areas, and when a child misbehaved all he had to do was look at you - and you were ‘finished’. This is a talent very few great educators have. Possibly he yelled, I don’t actually recall, but if and when Rabbi Goldstein yelled it was like a Tzaddik cleansing your soul. He breathed Judaism and ethics and morals, when he yelled it was his heart pouring out to the child’s soul, to re-support the child to re-behave. A true educator has to create a demeanor beyond yelling out of anger and disdain and lack of personal self control.
1. UNDERSTAND WHY YOU NEED TO STOP YELLING
Kicking the yelling habit will be more likely if you have a good basic understanding of why it’s an ineffective way to solve classroom discipline problems or issues at home.
Each one of us may find different reasons that inspire us to be better self-controlled individuals.
2. It’s really poor Role-Modeling
Even if we accomplish nothing else in a day, the least we can do is demonstrate a respectable level of self-control. Part of our job in life is to show students and children how to handle anger, stress, and conflict in a healthy and productive way. We can’t just tell them to do that. We have to show them. And yelling is definitely not showing them healthy, productive stress management. We all remember how much we despised being yelled at when were younger.
3. It Trains Students to Ignore Your Regular Voice
It may seem strange but when your go-to strategy for handling negative situations is yelling, students and children ultimately tune out all of your other voice levels and your training your students to listen to you only when you raise your voice. In other words, they learn that unless you’re shouting, you must not really mean it. So yelling begets more yelling, which may in turn make them immune to even the garden-variety yelling, so you have to keep upping the volume and intensity to get their attention. That’s just a horrible, slippery slope you need to back away from.
4. It Disrupts Student Responsibility
Studies find that when students have teachers who use more coercive, aggressive behavior management techniques (like yelling), they report being less likely to act responsibly in that class.
This makes sense, because students are acting more out of compliance and fear than out of any kind of intrinsic desire to be responsible. Which what any educator should really be imparting.
So if you believe it’s part of your job to raise mature, conscientious humans, know that yelling at them will only slow that process down; sorry!
5. Students Are Less Likely to Respect You
When adolescents are raised by authoritarian parents—whose methods are punitive, coercive, and often include yelling—they are less likely to view their parents as legitimate authority figures than kids whose parents have different styles, according to multiple studies in the Journal of Adolescence (Trinkner, Cohn, Rebellon, & Van Gundy). Because parenting and teaching involve similar skill sets, it’s reasonable to assume students who have authoritarian teachers feel the same way about them. The obedience you might get from yelling might look like respect, but that behavior probably doesn’t match their true feelings for you. Long term, it may even create resentment and yes even trauma.
6. It May Contribute to Bullying
The way students and kids at home treat one another has become a major concern for educators in recent years and always a concern for moms n’ dads. We tend to look at programs that aim to change student behavior and attitudes, but our own conduct may be a contributing factor: classrooms where the teacher used an authoritarian style— and parents who are in not in control, using punishment and coercion to influence student behavior—created an environment where bullying behavior between students and siblings are likely to develop. Trust me I've grown up in a large family - “Bullying doesn’t occur in a vacuum.” A host of factors contribute to it’s existence, and one of them is how teachers manage their classrooms and parents their children and how they respond to inappropriate student and children's behavior.
7. It Creates Anxiety for Everyone
I don’t think any research is needed to back this one up. When you yell in anger, it changes the feeling in the room; in your heart and mind and your "mood". Imagine what it does to the kid you’re yelling at, and for everyone within earshot (have mercy), that includes the teachers and students in nearby classrooms, siblings or neighbors.
Just a quick glance at your situation will tell you that the need for children's sense of healthy, safe, calm and grounded environment are vital. Students and children are much less able and likely to do quality academic work and show happy behavior when surrounded by anger.
Staying calm, cool and collected particularly in tough situations could be a vital gift to your students children and ultimately yourself.
[And always remember כל הכועס כאילו עובד עבודה זרה lack of self-control is often due to lack of experience with personal character traits.מה הוא רחום וחנון אף אתה תהא רחום וחנון... דברי תלמידי חכמים נשמעים בנחת.]
Being stern and serious and even raising our voice with a child or a group IS often necessary, as need be, but this is not the same as "yelling with disdain".
One good way to tell the difference is: would you feel jolly if your video was on You Tube? Ask yourself why?! Remeber children are little adults, how would you feel if SOMEONE YELLED AT YOU AT WORK - regardless of your behavior - how productive would you be?! How much more so with innocent children, precious souls who need, love, affection and EDUCATION!
Contrary to what many of us may have been exposed to over the years, learning good and healthy techniques for communication in education, is a vital prerequisite and requirement in any and every educating scenario and situation. Listen so kids will speak, speak so kids will listen. Don’t yell, please.