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Key points
- Dealing with disruptive students provides an opportunity to teach non-academic lessons.
- Student anxiety can be mitigated through alteration of the educational approach.
- Part of the job of a teacher is to promote social development.
By Christopher Costello, BA, with Ran D. Anbar, MD
As a person with anxiety, I faced some significant obstacles early in my career as a teacher. I felt confident in my ability to impart information about content, but the act of managing a high school classroom environment quickly became overwhelming.
Having to address a large group of students while attending to individual needs felt like treading water in the ocean, and each new issue that needed my attention was a wave pushing me under. While I was always able to come up for air, I did not feel secure in the classroom.
The fact that I started as a substitute teacher meant that the amount of information I would have about the students varied greatly. It ran the gamut from scripts for individual students that I could read aloud to, at the other extreme, nothing more than a list of names.
Add to this the precarious nature of my employment situation, and it all seemed tailor-made to send me spiraling into a panic. But through simple techniques of reframing, I have become not just a successful teacher but a proud one.
Disruptive Students
The problem with which I struggled most mightily was that of disruptive students. I found it easy to become distracted by them, and I would spend more time trying to calm them down than teaching the provided material. This heightened my anxiety: If I only managed to get through a portion of the sub plans, I felt like I had not done my job properly. This was the first framework I needed to change.
After much consideration, consultation with other teachers, and soul-searching, I came to a realization. While it is important to teach the students the material and provide continuity for when the classroom teacher returns, my ultimate responsibility is to ensure the well-being of students.
Rather than thinking of disruptive students as obstacles that I needed to overcome, I began to consider each act of disruption as an opportunity to teach lessons that went beyond the academic content: Lessons about respect, community, and helping others.
This sounds like a massive undertaking, but it was often as simple as saying something like, “Hey, think about how you’re affecting the learning of your peers right now,” when a student was talking over me.
I did not have to halt the class to confront the student, something that would often cause me to freeze up. I stopped thinking in terms of interruptions and “getting back on track,” and it became easier to transition from dealing with individual students back to a whole-class arrangement.
Once I changed the script of my thoughts, dealing with disruptive students became about connection instead of conflict.
This first act of reframing led to a second, deeper change in my teaching philosophy. Because of my anxiety, I tended to micromanage the classroom: Hovering around students who were not focused, clamping down on any and all side conversations, and so on. Yet again, it came down to a mistaken notion of my job as a teacher.
I felt that if I was not directly interacting with the students, they were not learning what they needed to, and therefore, I was not “doing my job.”
After reframing how I dealt with disruptive students, I realized that I could pick my battles. Not every student is equally disruptive, and it is important to make the distinction between disruptions that affect the quality of learning and those that are merely nuisances.
My Anxiety in the Classroom
Prior to entering the classroom, I thought my biggest hurdle would be students’ reactions to my stuttering. I still have vivid memories of being mocked by my own classmates. Even when they were not openly hostile, I recall the feeling of seething resentment when I took “too long” to answer a question.
My assumption was that these problems would be magnified by my position as a teacher since students often view their instructors in a negative light. My worst fear was that they would view my stutter as “ammunition.”
To say that I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. I have certainly felt some annoyance from some students at moments when it takes me longer than usual to deliver instruction. On the whole, however, they have been remarkably accommodating.
Students have been more than willing to give me time to gather my thoughts, jump into complete sentences for me, and even allow me to communicate via text on the board.
I attribute this to my own openness about the stutter. I often introduce myself to students by explaining that I have a stutter and what methods work best to overcome it. When students feel like they understand this part of me, they are much more likely to meet me where I am, so to speak, and provide the accommodations I need.
I have been continually touched by this willingness, and I now understand that my stutter has provided unique opportunities to build relationships with students.
Dealing With Student Anxiety
I have had students approach me after class to tell me that they were not bothered by the stutter, and some even said they were inspired by it. Students have opened up to me about their own struggles with anxiety and other disabilities and how much it means to see someone like me working as an educator.
They have been especially grateful for the ways that my anxiety has influenced my teaching practices. Having been a student with anxiety, I am interested in finding ways to mitigate the kinds of negative experiences I remember having.
For instance, I very rarely “cold call” students, a common practice involving choosing a random student who did not volunteer to answer a question. In my experience, this can be incredibly nerve-wracking. Instead of doing this when no one is engaging, I often transition to a free-writing exercise in which students jot down their responses to the question.
This gives me a way to gauge participation without putting students on the spot and also provides a chance for them to improve their writing skills. I have found that anxious students respond well to these measures, and my classroom community is all the better for it.
Group Activities
I also needed to reframe my attitude towards students working together during periods that do not involve direct instruction, such as when students are having discussions in small groups. My initial instinct was that students went off-topic too easily, and small group work interfered with my primary “job” of delivering content.
On reflection, however, I realized that this kind of semistructured time is vital for students’ social development, and it is part of my job as a teacher to encourage that. If students are talking to one another and learning from each other, that counts as success.
Conclusion
Since adopting a more open perspective about my role as an educator, I feel that I have grown as a person as well as a teacher.
I feel empowered to speak openly about my anxiety and stuttering as part of advocating for my needs. In a very real sense, I no longer see my anxiety as a liability but as an educational tool. I have learned the value of being open and building community.
The lessons I have learned in the classroom are equally applicable to the rest of my life. I can confidently say that I would not be where I am today had it not been for my experiences of teaching with anxiety.
Christopher Costello earned his BA in English and Queer Studies at Hobart College in 2022. This fall, he will matriculate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the English MA/PhD program.
