Today we are going to talk about the concept of forgiveness or letting it go when a student has had a conflict with you. Perhaps you get upset or offended by their behaviour, so, why is it so important for you, as a teacher, to be able to move past it?
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The concept we are talking about is, “Let it go” and I am not talking about that famous Disney movie. This whole concept of dealing with people means that relationships will have conflict whether they are relationships with students or other people. You are always going to have conflict and you are always going to have moments where other people hurt you. They might hurt you emotionally or personally and do something that really upsets you but you have to come to the point, as a teacher, of asking the question, “Can I move forward in my relationship with this person?”
We all know that relationships are the key to effective behaviour management. So if you are in a place where you have a broken or fractured relationship with one of your students, the priority for you is, to figure out a way to fix that relationship. If you cannot fix the relationship, you are going to continue having problems.
Something that I have noticed with a lot of teachers is that they take the behaviour of their students very personally. This is because the nature of most teachers is to care for people, but the Achilles heel of caring people is that they also are very sensitive, so they take negative behaviour personally. This can be very upsetting or emotionally taxing for you, so you have got to find ways that you can move past those events and be able to maintain or repair relationships, otherwise you are not going to be able to manage behaviour long term.
I’ll give you a story just to illustrate this point. I was working with a high school teacher, who for all intents and purposes was excellent at managing behaviour. I never had to speak to him about his practice because he managed his classes really well; but one day he came to me and asked for some advice. He had a particular student in his class who had stolen his mobile phone. She had been caught and suspended for a period of time but the event really upset him personally because she had violated his personal space. She went through his bag and stole his property so he took it quite personally and understandably so.
When she came back from suspension she was still aggressive and hostile towards him and he did not know how to manage her or how to integrate her back into the class. I asked him, “Have you forgiven her for what she did?” “Have you moved past the hurt of her violating your space and taking your phone?” He thought about it and he said, “No I do not think I have, I am still really upset and offended. Even though she has been suspended, she has not apologized to me and I am upset about that.” I told him that until he was able to make the first move towards restoring the relationship, she would continue being hostile.
Children will take their cues from adults. Children know if an adult is hostile towards them and so they will put up barriers and walls. It is really incumbent upon us as adults, to make the first move, even if we do not think it was our fault or even if we do not think that it is our responsibility to mend the relationship. As the person who is caring for them, we have to take that initiative and responsibility.
So what I suggested he do was just something very simple. I said, “Whenever she comes to class say, “Hey welcome to class today, I am glad you are here.” So that is what he did. He stood at the door every day when they came in and he would call her by name and say, “Hey welcome to class, so glad you are here.” He came back to me two weeks later and a remarkable change had taken place. He said she was compliant, helpful, less hostile towards him and participating in the class.
What had happened was, he took the first step to initiate the healing process in their relationship. He let her know that he was not going to hold a grudge, and that he wanted her back in the class. Until the child feels that they are wanted in the class and that they are safe, they are not going to look for a relationship with you.
Let me unpack this in three steps that you can use to mend a relationship by letting it go and moving past a conflict with a student.
1. Fake It Until You Make It.
The first thing is this, you may need to fake it till you make it. Forgiveness or letting something go is not necessarily determined by how you feel. A lot of people say, “When I feel ready, then I will forgive” or “I am still hurt so I cannot forgive”. Your feelings do not necessarily have to determine your response to that person. Going back to the example that I mentioned at the beginning, when I asked the offended teacher to say, “Welcome to class, I am glad you’re here”; initially, he did not want to do that. He said, “No I am not really happy she is in the class”. I said, “I know you are not happy she is in the class but you can tell her you are happy she is in the class.”
If you can at least show the student that you are glad that they are in your class, that you want a relationship with them, what will happen is, your feelings will actually follow. Do not make the mistake of going the other way. Do not let your feelings lead your decision making. Make the decision to do what is right and your feelings will actually follow that decision.
So the first step towards forgiveness is, you may need to fake it till you make it. Start making moves towards mending the relationship even if inside, you are still wrestling with it.
2. Remember You Are The Adult.
The second thing is this, you need to remember who the adult is in the relationship. Very often children can say and do things to us that are very hurtful. They can make us feel indignant, angry, ashamed or humiliated and if you are waiting for the child to make the first move you have got to ask yourself who the adult is. Children learn by mimicking; they learn from role models like the teacher. They are mimicking your role modelling and ability to build and repair relationships. So, you have to show them that it is possible to mend a relationship even if you were not the person that damaged the relationship.
You have got to make the first move because you are the adult, you are the teacher. You signed up to model behaviour for children so that they would know how to live their lives. So, part of that is learning how to show them what forgiveness looks like. Show them what respect looks like even before they are ready to give it to you or even if they do not deserve it. Remember you are the adult, you are modelling the behaviour so you get to make the first move.
3. Long Term Goals
The third thing is this, think about the long term goals. As a teacher, what are your long-term goals in your relationship with your students ? My hope is that you all think about your students in terms of who you are helping them to become. We are not just teaching a number, a lesson, administering a curriculum or completing an assessment. We are teaching little human beings to become grown-ups, who can function well in society.
Part of your role is to prepare them for adulthood. You have got to keep that in mind and say, “Ok if I cannot model the repairing of relationships, forgiveness or letting it go, how does that prepare them for adulthood? Does that make them better adults? Does that help them to navigate the problems and challenges of their life? Or am I just contributing to a load of other dysfunctional or negative examples that they may have seen?
You get to determine the outcomes based on how you perceive your students and if you care about your students like I know many of you do, and you want to see them achieve their very best, then you have got to learn to let it go. You have got to learn to fake it till you make it. Show them that you want them in the class. Show them you want to mend relationships.
Make the effort, as the adult, to make the first move. You have got to think about the long-term effects of your relationship and the way that you respond to them. If you can do that, what you will find is that like my friend about whom I gave the example at the beginning, the student will start to change the way he or she behaves with you. They will change the way they respond to you and you will have far more productive, positive and respectful relationships with your students.
I hope that was really helpful. If it was, and you know someone else who would be helped by this advice, make sure you share it with them. Do not forget to subscribe and follow on whatever channel you are on. Please give us a review and help us get this message out to more people.
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