Anger Isn't Productive

Yesterday I had a rough day.

I was placed in the shoes of my students by some overbearing coworkers.

This is how the situation went down…

We have a thing called Re-Do at our school. I will have to do a whole separate post or two on that topic…well I’m innocently eating my lunch- homemade chili-and the Redo aid (she’s not even a teacher) storms into the lounge with her hands thrown up(seriously) and asks pretty rudely, “So are you going to send any work [for your students]??”

I guilty jump out of my chair and mutter an apologetic “Oh, yes!” and rush to my classroom to retrieve the work for my students.

I say a prayer ‘cause I am pretty pissed at this lady for being such a bitch to me…unfortunately, the prayer didn’t change my heart like it should have and I walked into the Library, shoot the woman a death glance, and hand the papers out to my kids. I did apologize to the other woman who runs the Redo, but when I walked out of the Library, Bitch walked past me and I completely ignored her.

I felt exactly, exactly like a small child who was chastised by mommy and was now sulking and giving mommy an attitude.

So wrong.

Second incident (same day, two hours later): The counselor calls me up asking for some scantrons that I sent down LAST THURSDAY because I wanted them in on time, actually a little bit early.

“Ms. Angryteacher, you are our holdout, you are the only one we haven’t received the scantrons from.”

I replied with the aforementioned statement but added, “I did send them down to your box with a trustworthy student.”

She paused, “Maybe the kid thought the other counselor’s box, let me go check.” Five minutes later lo and behold, that’s exactly what my “trustworthy” students had done.

Counselor’s parting words over the telephone, a frazzled and admonishing, “Don’t ever send a child down with completed scantrons!!” Click.

Again! I’m getting in trouble again!! Ahh, I felt like a naughty child being yelled at by their teacher! I almost cried (okay, maybe I’m PMS too..)

Later when I saw her, I was abrupt and had a bad attitude. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the receiving side of a lecture; I’m usually the one giving lectures nowdays.

Lesson learned: Yeah, we are human, and we are going to be frustrated with other people, especially kids who are rude, stupid, stubborn, troublemakers, tardy, etc. but yelling or even worse, being condescending doesn’t help. Our natural reaction is to become defensive and pissed off.

And you never know when a kid just got in trouble in  another teacher’s class. What happens when you also get on to them about something, even if it’s very important? Most likely, the kid will be angrier than normal and resent you for days/weeks/ months to come.

What your mouths is all I’m trying to say.

-thaangryteacher