One of the challenges facing teachers is the temptation to lose their temper in the process of managing their classrooms. It is, however, a trap that every teacher must avoid.
When you lose your temper, you speak and act uncontrollably. This exposes you to your students, and they’ll use it against you. When that happens, you would lose control of the class and your students’ behavior, hence increasing your stress and burnout.
In this article, we will discuss ways to help you not to lose your temper in the classroom. The following tips will be of use if you followed them religiously:
1. Being empathetic
2. Don’t be judgmental
3. Awareness of your obligations
4. Built close and healthy relationships with your students
5. Don’t try to correct everything
6. Managing your stress effectively
7. Avoiding clashes and debates
8. Use the power of Silence
9. Laughter
10. Learn to manage your anger
Teachers who lose their temper in class often employ aggressive classroom management strategies to help them manage students’ behavior. This, they lose credibility out of the stress in managing classrooms with aggressive techniques.
10 Tips to Help You Not to Lose Your Temper
We need to pay much attention to our classroom management techniques. One of the best ways is to manage our temper effectively, we will not face the consequences of losing it. The following tips can help us:
Being empathetic
To be empathetic, you put yourself in the position of others. This means you have to always put yourself in the position of your students. That is, put up behaviors that tempt us to lose our tempers for so many reasons.
Some are controllable, others are not. Putting yourself in the position of your students will help you feel for them, and that will stop you from losing your temper.
For instance, the behavior of your students after the lunch break on a sunny Friday will certainly be uneasiness and disruptions due to restlessness. If you imagine yourself in that condition in a classroom as a student, how would you behave?
Pondering over it for some time will stop you from losing your temper if your students engage in undesired behaviors.
Don’t be judgmental
There are reasons why students misbehave in a classroom. Some behaviors may be intentional while others will not. As an effective teacher, you need to understand the causes of their misbehavior.
This will help you put up an appropriate response. Therefore, don’t rush to a conclusion that their behavior is intentional. If you’re not judgmental, you’ll wait till you understand the causes of students’ behavior before you will act.
This will make you keep your calm and stop you from losing your temper. You will win students’ respect and hence your credibility with that response.
For example, one of my students was interrupting his friends in lessons and me. I was not happy with that behavior and approached him, and he stopped. But continued to do that afterward, and I nearly lost it.
This happened in the first month of taking up the position. After my lesson, I asked more about the student, and I was told he’s suffering from ADHD. I feel sad and thanked my stars for not losing my temper. I got closer to him, and we are friends now. He has stopped that behavior in my lessons.
Awareness Of Your Obligations
Aware of your responsibilities in maintaining a conducive classroom for teaching and learning can help you not to lose your temper when your students misbehave.
Yes, we know there are numerous reasons for students put up problem behaviors, but sometimes these behaviors are a result of our actions and inaction. Knowing that, you tend to be calm and try to understand the cause of the undesired behavior.
With that, you will not lose your temper in the situation. Even this helps you put in place proactive measures to stop students from misbehaving in class. And when they do misbehave, you remain calm and focus when dealing with that.
Building Close And Healthy Relationships With Students
The importance of close and healthy relationships with students in the classroom cannot be overemphasized. It is a powerful tool in eliminating the majority of classroom misbehavior.
When you have a strong bond with your students, you build trust and compassion for one another, and that stops you from losing your temper over their behaviors.
On the other hand, they feel for you and will not like to stress you up. Thereby not giving you the reason to lose your temper on them.
Even if they misbehave, it will be easier to deal with, and you will not have the reason to lose your temper.
Don’t Try To Correct Everything
In managing students’ behavior, you don’t have to correct everything in the class. There are numerous things or behaviors you have to ignore, you will lose control of the class. This is because students will use it to get the better of you.
Certain behaviors are better-ignored students will be motivated to continue doing them because you gave them attention.
There are other times when you just have to swerve and not being strict on students’ behavior, depending on their condition and that of the classroom environment.
Managing Your Stress Effectively
In our today’s world, what is life is loaded with anxiety, coming from different directions. This results in stress. The most important thing is how you manage it.
If you managed to get control over yourself effectively, you will not be easily irritated by your students’ behavior. Effective time management can be one of the best ways of managing your stress.
It is therefore commented for teachers to work on managing their stress effectively. This prevents them from many problems in the classroom.
Avoid Clashes In Debates
In managing classroom behavior, it is recommended to be firm, flexible, and avoid clashes or debates with students. Clashes and debates often occur where there is a power struggle in the classroom between teachers and students.
Don’t be tempted to ever engage in a power struggle with a student. This is because it makes matters worse what do you have one or give into during the struggle.
You may lose your temper in the process. One of the strategies is to withdraw from the Clash or debate. You can make a private meeting with the student to discuss the problem or issue in contention.
Use The Power Of Silence
Silence is undoubtedly one of the best strategies for some people when they don’t want to lose their temper. You can try it to see whether it will work for you.
But for me, it is extremely powerful to not lose my temper when my students misbehave. I usually remain silent, but with firm eye contact or look.
By being silent, I can calm myself down and stop myself from losing my temper.
Using Laughter
It is one of the tools that can be used to ameliorate irritating situations. At least, it has been one of the best tools that get me results when I don’t want to lose my temper in the classroom.
Laughing in an irritating situation shows me to think of ways to justify students’ behavior at that moment. That makes me forget to lose myself.
My experience is that students get surprised and begin to regret their problem behaviors when you are laughing over their disruptive behavior.
The entire process makes it easier for me to deal with the situation. In that case, students begin to give up attempts to make you lose your temper.
Learn To Manage Your Anger Effectively
Having control of one’s anger is important when dealing with people. This applies to your relationship and interactions with your students too.
Make a conscious effort to become skillful in managing your anger. This will help you avoid situations that will make you lose your cool.
It will also help you to redirect irritating situations to productive ones.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above that losing one’s temper in the classroom is something we must always avoid. If you follow the recommended tips above with consistency and patience, you will see improvement in your ability to manage your stress in class.
