When Hurting Turns To Anger: Helping Students

When Hurting Turns to Anger

Helping Students

Dr. Rosalyn Anstine Templeton

Copyright © 2019 by Dr. Rosalyn Anstine Templeton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Nicholas J. Long permitted by telephone to use his LSCI material. Adele Faber was asked to co-author this book. She declined but shared her faith in my solo abilities to complete this book. Diligent effort was made to give them and others credit for their work. Conscientiousness was used to determine if previously published material in this book required permission to reprint. Please accept apologies for any errors. Corrections will be made in future editions.

No part of this book is intended as medical advice for social, emotional, or medical problems. The author assumes no liability for your actions.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Dynamics of Anger

Emotional First Aid in Today’s Classrooms

Supporting Angry Students

Angry Students Talking

Helping Students Understand Their Anger

Students Solving Problems

Students Developing Plans for Success

Students Practicing Their Resolution Plans

Transitioning Students Back into Classroom Activities

Putting It All Together

Anger-management training teaches us to express our anger in non-hurtful, assertive ways and not in aggressive or passive-aggressive ways. The goal is not to eliminate our anger but to manage it in a style that promotes interpersonal communication and respect. This level of anger management includes understanding the intention of our anger, viewing student anger in a nonpersonal manner, and developing a host of cognitive self-talk techniques.

–Nicholas J Long 1996

Acknowledgments

This book’s dedication goes to my professor, mentor, colleague, and friend, Dr. Nicholas J. Long. I will be forever grateful to him for his knowledge, wisdom, patience, and kindness. He accepted me into his graduate program at American University, even when I could not pay all the tuition. Who does that for an applicant? Dr. Long has that kind of dedication and compassion for those who want to help angry students succeed.

I am thankful for my husband, Larry. He deserves unending accolades for his support, continual reading, and valuable input. More than grateful describes how I feel about my friend Chris. She offered to read and proof this book, even when her job was unbearably hectic.

Finally, I want to acknowledge my K-12 students who were hurting and those teachers or education majors wanting to teach all kids, angry or not. May your lives be filled with peace and God’s grace.

Why a Book on Anger for Educators?

Today, anger in schools is a deadly problem. Students are hurting and that collective ache has turned into an anger that has killed hundreds of kids. We need to stop the hurting. The How to Talk so Kids Will Learn, book I coauthored, was a good start. Yet, educators need more strategies to help students turn their fury into words, and their words into plans of success. When Hurting Turns to Anger fills the void by providing teachers and school personnel techniques that support angry students, encourages them to talk, and helps kids develop plans for success.

Living in a family full of anger, I decided (at an early age) that I wanted to be a teacher because they were caring, and school was a safe place. I was fortunate to have had caring teachers. The dream to teach came true in 1984, with my undergraduate degree in elementary and special education. Fast forward past a master’s, doctorate, and decades of teaching angry kids or future teachers, I feel blessed and grateful to be writing a book on anger. My wish is to help teachers and school personnel create classroom and school environments where kids (even angry ones) can learn, feel safe, and succeed.

Concepts for the following chapters have been influenced by the work of Drs. Nicholas J. Long (1980, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2014) Fritz Redl (1951, 1959, 1965, 1972, 1980) and Haim Ginott (1972). These individuals are or were committed professionals dedicated to finding better ways to communicate, with hurting kids consumed by anger. I became familiar with Ginott’s published work through Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, New York Times bestselling authors of How to Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen so Kids Will Talk. As a faculty member at Bradley University, I used their book in my classroom management courses. Students complained that the book was written for parents and not relevant to classrooms. Therefore, I made that unforgettable phone call to Adele Faber to discuss writing a book showing teachers how to communicate more successfully with students. Thus, a coauthor partnership was formed which resulted in writing How to Talk so Kids can Learn at Home and in School (1995).

As a graduate student at American University (AU), I was introduced to Drs. Redl’s and Long’s work with angry kids. Graduate students (including me) under Dr. Long’s mentorship took nighttime coursework at AU to learn theory and strategies to help angry students. Then each day was spent in a classroom at Rose School putting the psychoeducational theories and strategies into practice, while being critiqued by master teachers. Part of my training included using the advanced communication skills of Life Space Interviewing (LSI). Dr. Long endorsed the LSI communication skills being used by teachers helping students in crisis. In the early 90s, Dr. Long adapted LSI into Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) to further refine the talking skills and make them more usable for teachers in special education classrooms or alternative schools.

Hired to teach students diagnosed with Social-Emotional Disorders (SED) in a district without alternative schools, I discovered that LSI strategies could be adapted for use by teachers who didn’t have special education training. More accurately, colleagues witnessed the communication strategies I used with their angry students and wanted to learn them. Thus, started process of adapting the LSI skills I used in my special education classroom for use in regular rooms with angry students. I called the adapted LSI skills Anger Reducing Techniques (ART).

In 1991, I made a career switch from teaching angry kids in public schools to teaching education majors at the university level. A change that I envisioned would help future students with anger issues by first helping their teachers learn communication or ART skills. With ART, teachers can help students turn their hurting into productive behavior rather than angry actions. Also, in the 1990s, I became an advanced LSCI Senior Trainer through Dr. Long’s Life Space Crisis Intervention Institute. Yet, I was compelled to do more since our schools were becoming dangerous places for kids.

Therefore, the idea of putting ART into a book settled in the back of my mind. After years of testing the strategies, the idea resulted in writing When Hurting Turns to Anger: Helping Students. What is ART? It is a seven-step process that helps students talk about their anger and learn ways to handle strong emotions effectively, before they reach the crisis stage. Therefore, ART can be used with any student in any school, whether elementary, middle, or high school—private or public. The premise being students can learn skills to handle their anger productively in school, rather than becoming overwhelmed, losing control, and cycling into crises.

In the book’s following chapters, teachers and school personnel will learn ways to create a learning environment that is beneficial to all students, no matter what level of emotional maturity they exhibit. In Chapter 1, The Dynamics of Anger, school individuals will read about the ins and outs of anger. For instance, do you know why it feels natural to punish students? Or, do you know that anger is not bad, and it has four realities? If you want to learn strategies on how to remain calm in angry moments, the details in Chapter 1 will be helpful.

In Chapter 2, Emotional First Aid in Today’s Classrooms, teachers, counselors, and school personnel can read about a quick problem-solving process to help students involved in stressful or anger provoking situations. Just knowing the times Emotional First Aid should be used and how to initiate the process will resolve many problems that students face, today. For students who are full of hurt and habitually acting-out their anger, there are Anger Reducing Techniques (ART), presented in Chapters 3 through 9.

In Chapter 3, Support Angry Students, teachers learn the seven steps of the ART process. Plus, Step 1 of ART: Supporting Angry Students is shared in detail. In Chapter 4, Step 2 of ART: Angry Students Talking, techniques on encouraging resistant kids to start using words to express their rage is shared. Then, in Chapter 5, Step 3 of ART: Helping Students Understand Their Anger, school personnel read about strategies that give kids insight into why their problems happened. For example, did students lack social skills, or were they being exploited or did students have confused perceptions of their situations? With a deeper understanding of their problems, students become motivated to problem solve, which is the content of Chapter 6, Step 4 of ART, Students Problem Solving. In chapters 7 and 8, teachers learn how to help students develop and practice their plans of success. In Chapter 9, educators read about techniques to ensure students can reenter classroom activities without further incidents erupting. The book’s final chapter (Putting it All Together), the seven steps of ART are tied together and concludes with strategies to develop social and emotional healthy classrooms and schools.

It is my sincere hope that the emotional first aid and ART techniques outlined in this book will equip teachers with the strategies needed to help students manage their hurt and handle their anger in more humane ways. Too many students have committed senseless acts due to their feelings of hurt turning into blind rage. Without passionate people like Nick Long, Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish, and the late Fritz Redl and Haim Ginott, countless students would continue hurting; while their teachers would be lost and exasperated about how to help them.

Chapter 1

The Dynamics of Anger

How a Teacher Handled Her Anger

As I walked into my classroom, two hours early, to prepare for the day, my phone buzzed. My husband told me that our daughter had been in a minor accident driving to school. I rushed to her location, which was on the street leading to my school. She’d picked up her girlfriend, was heading to the high school, and oversteered while reaching for a CD. Her vintage 1965 Mustang flipped on its side and skidded down the road 150 yards, taking out some mailboxes rather than elementary students.

By the time I returned to my room, students were entering and excitedly telling each other and me about my daughter’s wreck. Many had witnessed it, and they were giving blow-by-blow details. I was flustered and unprepared to begin the day. The students were overexcited, and the contagion was spreading. One student, Riley, started laughing and yelled loudly, Oh man, can you believe it! That car flipped on its side and shot down the sidewalk! We had to jump out of the way! We were almost killed!

I became anxious and upset. I told the kids they’d better get in their seats and settle down, or there would be no time for morning recess.

Another student, Carter, flipped out and screamed, Why are you taking my recess away? I won’t let you! Do you hear me? It’s not my fault. Your kid tried to kill us!

All my students suddenly became quiet and stared at me. The silence was deafening. I told Carter he needed to leave the room and wait in the hall until I could talk to him. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, whatever, and walked out of the room.

After settling the students and giving them a silent reading assignment, I went to look for Carter. What happened next was not pretty nor professional. When Carter saw me, he hung his head. I asked him to look at me, and he refused. I got into his face, and Carter looked up at me. It was obvious he felt uncomfortable and threatened. Unexpectedly, he spat in my face. I stood shocked, with saliva running down my cheek, fury building, and in a split second, I spit in his face and said, How does it feel? He crumpled to the floor and buried his face in his arms. I told him that he’d lost his recess, earned detention, and walked back into my room.

How Teachers Often Respond to Angry Students

Irritation, resentment, and sheer frustration are the most common teachers’ responses to students who display anger. In turn, these behaviors can lead teachers to scold, shake, humiliate, embarrass, or retaliate against students. Studies have shown that angry adults can incite rage in students. Or, angry students can get teachers to feel their anger and overreact. In other words, students can give their anger to teachers to act out. Often, these overreactions mean punishing students.

Why Does Punishment Feel so Natural?

Some teachers grow up being slapped, spanked, yelled at, ridiculed, or isolated, so they believe there are no alternatives to punishment. Therefore, when they’re angry, punishment feels familiar and a normal way to handle misbehaving students. Other teachers learn in their education programs that they need to be strict, which can mean using punitive measures and embracing the adage, Don’t smile until Christmas. However, when Christmas comes and goes, many teachers are afraid to stop using punishments.

Still, other teachers have learned there are alternatives to punishment but insist these options don’t work as well or takes too much time. So, getting angry and becoming punitive becomes a habit that turns into a repetitive, negative cycle. One teacher stated, I must get really mad and start yelling before students get on task. I don’t like to continually yell at them to get their work done or demand they stop talking and start listening, but it is the only thing that works.

In case you may think that these teachers are using dated practices, not so. Even today, a literature search will show that applied behavior analysis is alive, and punishment is still noted as effective to diminish misbehavior.

What’s Wrong with Teachers Using Punitive Strategies?

Drs. Redl, Long, and Ginott, experts in education and psychology, have told us for decades that punishment of students does not stop misbehavior; instead, it makes them more cautious and sneakier the next time they misbehave (Redl 1972, 1980; Long, Morse, and Newman 1980; Ginott 1972). Furthermore, since punishment does not teach a better behavior, it keeps reoccurring, interfering with learning. Drs. Ginott and Long have said that verbal or physical punishment helps adults [teachers] feel vindicated but causes children to feel more anger and hatred (Ginott 1972; Long et al. 1980). When punished, the lesson students learn is that using angry actions is okay when you’re upset and in charge. In other words, angry teachers model for students how to be vindictive when they’re mad.

Still another drawback to punishment is that after some teachers overreact, they feel guilty and then overindulge their students. Being too harsh and then overly lenient causes some students to feel angry and others confused. Eventually, students learn to play the system: get the teacher angry, serve punishment, and get rewarded (free time, a movie, or extra recess).

Teachers who are still unsure about the disadvantages of punishment should embed themselves in the following scenarios and ask the following questions:

Did I enjoy my principal calling me out during a teachers’ meeting because my weekly lesson plans were late to his office for the third time? Then he took it a step further and joked that maybe I needed to write one thousand times—I would turn in my lesson plans by Friday afternoon.

Or

Did I like my lead teacher saying, in front of colleagues, that my contribution to the school’s assessment plan was all wrong, needed to be rewritten, and was due to her classroom on Monday morning?

No teacher would like to be treated this way. Neither do students.

Teachers, if you have angry students (and who doesn’t?), behavioral plans that include punishment strategies may not work for the following reasons. First, the punishment