No place for anger in classrooms

Simon Marcus Gower, Executive Principal High/Scope Indonesia, Jakarta

Anger, it is said, is a wasteful emotion. Anger, the wise say, "blows out the lamp of the mind and leaves us in foolish darkness". But sadly, anger is an emotion that may be commonly encountered in our classrooms schools. If anger does indeed "blow out the lamp of the mind" then a key objective of education -- namely the development of the mind is being significantly undermined.

It seems to be a quite common experience here for teachers to get angry, sometimes even to the point that they will even hit students. Whilst teachers hitting students may be condemned, teachers striking students is quite regularly reported.

A violent teacher is a teacher that has allowed anger to get the better of him and he is no longer the model of calm and cool leadership that he should be.

It has been all too easy to see students that have lost control. Fighting school students on Jakarta's streets are not unfamiliar sights but perhaps it is understandable that students can lose control when they see their teachers doing likewise.

As role-models, guides and mentors for the impressionable young, teachers have a near unspoken duty to contain their emotions. They have to be emotionally resilient to the challenges and temptations that may come before them emotionally.

To some extent teachers need to be emotionally detached from the extremes of encounters in the classroom. They have to be able to balance the extreme highs and lows of teaching that can be faced on a daily basis. No matter how good or bad their feelings may be, they still need to be able to maintain that cool and calm equilibrium that is a resource and source of comfort for their students.

It is easy for teachers to become deeply emotionally involved with their class, but this is also perilous for both the teacher and the students. For example, a teacher of junior high classes recently showed himself to be depressed. It was found that he was too emotionally involved with his teaching and material and this meant that he was sensitive to criticism and doubts.

Apparently his class had not been responding well to his teaching material. Certainly he was right to be reflective and review his teaching efforts but he was wrong to allow his emotions to overpower him and undermine his ability to return to that class with confidence and leadership.

Likewise teachers that have allowed themselves to get angry in a class are liable to undermine qualities of confidence and leadership. Teachers that hit their students foster dislike, contempt and disrespect. A leader that is able to guide through consensus and shared respect is likely to enjoy more followers and success than one that leads by force.

Also the notion of the student having confidence, trust, faith and belief in the teacher is undermined if anger and violent behaviour is allowed to be seen to rule the day.

Another common experience in Indonesian schools is to see a talkative or disruptive student sitting or standing outside of the classroom door. The teacher has become angry, lost control and essentially given up on the disruptive student, forcing him to leave the classroom and so miss out on learning.

Indeed, unfortunately, anger is something that can be learnt. Students that see their teachers get angry gather the impression that they too can and maybe even should get angry. A final year high school student who was mostly regarded as a polite and quiet student surprised many with his anger recently.

After receiving a test result and finding that his score was lower than he expected his anger got the better of him and he punched a hole in the plywood of his classroom's door. Although regretful and embarrassed by what he had done it earned him a reprimand; but just a few weeks prior to this incident one of his teachers had similarly broken a chair within the same classroom.

Doubtless, the teacher got the attention of the class but he had also managed to introduce destructive rage into that classroom.

It is said that anger is momentary madness; an uncontrolled passion that will end up controlling you. These things are particularly worrying if we think of "uncontrolled passion" and "momentary madness" in a classroom. These are things probably most unwanted in a classroom.

Education critically has to address the improvement of the mind and make students mindful of all that they do.

If teachers are unable to contain their anger,inevitably hopes of helping students to learn "how to think" will fade. Likewise, students may duplicate the anger of their teachers and this would seriously setback educational objectives.