Charm Offensive

According to last Sunday’s New York Times, one out of three teachers has considered quitting, or knows another teacher who has considered quitting, because of rude students. The only surprise to me is that the numbers are so low.
      Two weeks ago one of my colleagues was driven from her classroom in tears by sheer disrespect. She wasn’t the first I’ve seen. Another, a veteran whom I would have thought had survived the worst that disruptive students can hand out, went to administration last year to have one of his classes split up. He gave the students he thought might be salvaged to another teacher, and kept the incorrigible savages in his own class. He sat them as far apart from each other as was physically possible and tried to teach them the rudiments of polite behavior. It didn’t work.
      In my first, horrible, year as a teacher, I considered quitting every day until April. Then, for reasons I still can’t fully explain, I turned the corner. But the first seven months were an ordeal. I used to come back to my office from class and shake for minutes at a time. A couple of years ago, when another colleague in her first year was weeping at her desk (rude students), my friend Ann Moller went over to her and just stroked her hair for a second.
      I said, ‘How come you never stroked my hair when I was having a bad day in my first year?’
      Ann grinned. ‘You were shaking so hard I was afraid you’d hurt me,’ she said.
      Why students behave so badly is a question I’ll leave to the experts to try to explain. The good news is it’s only a small minority who drive teachers to tears or early retirement. The bad news is it’s also only a small minority of students who are genuinely courteous. The vast middle group is neither utterly barbaric nor fully civilized.
      Here’s an example. One morning this fall, as students were on their way to their first classes, I came across Ann holding open one of the double doors in the hallway outside the English office. She caught my eye and I came over.
      ‘I’ve been counting,’ she said. ‘Seventy-seven students have gone through this door since I started holding it. Seven have said ŒThank you.’’
      Recently, I have tried replicating her results. I now hold that same door open every morning before Block One, because my classroom is close by, and we are expected to be in the halls to encourage good behavior.
      The first week, my figures were very close to Ann’s. Roughly one in ten students said ‘thank you’ or otherwise acknowledged my help with a nod or a smile. Most of them were students I’ve had in class before.
      Then I tried a new tack. I started saying ‘good morning’ to all students who passed, whether I knew them or not. It felt a little artificial, but I persisted. At first, it didn’t change anything, although I got a lot of startled looks from students who’d never been in my class.
      However, in the second and third weeks of the experiment, something interesting has developed. I can’t supply numbers -- it’s hard to count and say ‘good morning’ at the same time -- but I’m sure that the percentage of responses is increasing. I’m getting more smiles, more thanks, even a few tentative greetings in return. In fact, I’d guess it’s approaching fifty percent.
      It doesn’t work all the time. A lot of students still trudge by without a glance; it’s 7:30 in the morning, after all. I could offer them hundred-dollar bills and they wouldn’t notice. But I’ve only gotten one hostile reaction to my charm offensive. It’s a student in one of my classes, so I greet her by name.  She looks me in the eye, curls her lip, and stalks past without speaking.
     Somebody suggested I try reverse psychology, and not speak to her at all. The trouble is, in order to do that, I’d have to act rudely. And if that’s what it takes, maybe I’ll find some other way to make a living.