Rapport

Early one morning, not generally a good time for students, I was teaching A Streetcar named Desire to an average junior class. Robert walked in ten minutes late, interrupting the lesson. He sat down, talking loudly to a friend in the next seat. I stood silent, waiting until I could make strong eye contact with him. "Please open your book," I said. His response was sudden and shocking, in one swift move jumping up, shoving over his desk, books and all onto the floor, screaming an expletive, and stamping out of the room slamming the door behind him. Jaws dropped and all heads turned toward me. I hesitated, looked at the class and finally said, "That's what happens when you don't eat breakfast." The class laughed; I breathed a sigh of relief, and continued with the lesson.

Robert was angry when he walked in; anything could have caused his strong reaction. Why had it happened? When Robert returned to class the next day, he immediately came up to me and apologized. Of course, by that time I had weighed alternative responses and I asked him first to write a journal, explaining what happened to provoke his outburst.

Within ten minutes, his journal was in my hands. A series of incidents had occurred before class, including working late the night before, oversleeping, a screaming argument with him father, and the final straw---missing the bus. The last place he wanted to be then was in an English classroom.

Trying to soften his frustration, I responded briefly in writing to his explanation, opening a door to reducing tension and anger in the classroom. Listening to all students through writing (not every day or every assignment) helps reach them quickly.

As a teacher you might say, "How can you get an angry, possibly unstable kid to write anything about his behavior? If that happened in my class, he or she might simply have crumpled up the paper and thrown it at my feet.

It's all about rapport--a key ingredient in reaching students. Rapport must be developed slowly over time in many different ways including some journal writing every day about personal subjects. Anger and irritation can build in any classroom. But once most students recognize that their personal thoughts and ideas are important, that they can speak honestly without being judged and have a way of dealing with grievances, they will respond positively to the writing assignments and the class.

And I found out, as I suspected, that it really wasn't about me.

Rapport didn't guarantee that Robert would always behave, but it is a preventative, and discourages other students from joining the disruptive bandwagon. Also, I made sure Robert knew there would be a penalty for his behavior. His classroom participation/cooperation mark, averaged in with all the others for that marking period, would be lowered.

How would you have handled this situation?