Tarun: I’m here with Marian at the Australian Industry Trade College. We’re just about to do a PD on understanding and educating boys. Marian, I was just chatting with you, asking you what’s one challenge you’ve had recently in the classroom that you would like to sort of unpack a little bit today.

Marian: I think one of the biggest struggles not just for me but for any teacher, is how you regulate and monitor your own emotions in the classroom. Especially in the face of behavior that’s constantly destructive and sometimes things that feel personally attacking. It’s very hard to separate the personal from the professional because so much of what we do is human. It requires our human self to turn up, to connect and to care. So how to draw a boundary around that and not take behaviour that is very threatening and attacking sometimes is really hard.

Tarun: That’s good. I liked the phrase you used, you said “How do I separate personal and professional life?” I talk a lot about this in my behavior management PD’s. About being able to manage your emotions and having enough self awareness to know what your triggers are. If you don’t know what sets you off, I guarantee your kids have already figured it out, and will utilize that. 

Here’s one thing that I think is interesting. As teachers what we’re often taught is to separate our personal and professional lives and put our emotions in boxes. But like you said, we’re human and we have emotions and those emotions leak into our professional life. 

What I’m finding is far more effective than trying to separate out, because you are going to bring your emotion to the classroom, that’s natural. You don’t have two personalities (at least I hope you don’t) but your emotions are gonna come into the classroom, even your personal emotions are going to come into the classroom.

So what is it, it’s not about separating your professional and personal life, it’s about regulating your personal emotions, and that needs honesty. 

1. One, you’ve got to acknowledge that you’re human, and your humanity is going to come into the classroom. 
2. The second thing is, you’ve got to know what’s going on in your life that may impact you in the classroom. Did your car break down this week, have you got bills you’re struggling to pay, did you have a fight with your husband. All of that will come into the classroom with you. If you’re not aware of it, or honest enough to acknowledge it, then you won’t be able to manage it. 

But I think if it starts with honesty, and then we say, “Ok, I’m having a bad day today. What am I going to put in place today to help me regulate my personal life as it comes into the classroom?” When I’m aware of my triggers, I’m aware of what sets me off, then I can give myself a buffer.

I always talk about having margins when you work with children. If you don’t create margins they will take you to your limit and you won’t be able to control yourself. So always know that there’s a buffer between where you might get set off and what you’re actually trying to manage. 

I’ll give you a little example, So one of the things that triggers me and stresses me out is a lot of noise in the room. When I’m teaching I find noisy rooms stressful, some teachers don’t. I know that every human being will exceed the boundaries that’s put on them, that’s natural human behaviour. If I said to my class “I am happy with whispering,” I know that somebody is going to start loud talking, then somebody’s gonna start shouting once there is loud talking and very soon I’ll have a noisy classroom. 

But here’s what I do know, I can handle whispering. So to create margin, my instruction to the class is not “You can whisper while you talk,” my instruction is “I don’t wanna hear any talking at all,” because I know that somebody will start whispering. As soon as they start whispering, I’m okay still. I’m not stressed, I’ve got margin, I can deal with the whispering. It never gets to the loud talking and they’re not triggering me unnecessarily because I’ve created that buffer between what I can tolerate and what I can’t tolerate. 

I think that’s the important thing, just know you’re human. Create margins and walk into the classroom knowing that some of your personal life will leak into your professional life, and just have a strategy of how you’re going to manage it in the moment.

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