"She's not talking directly TO YOU"

My mom had to explain this to me when I encountered my first bad teacher. This was in the fifth-grade. The woman was disappointed and angry all the time. She would get so upset by a not particularly rambunctious fifth-grade class that she would scold us from the front of the room, turning red and shaking. Her favorite adjective to describe how she felt about our assignments, math quizzes, behavior--just about anything--was "appalling." "I am appalled," she would say. She had a habit of berating the whole class at once, and I took it very personally. I think I missed the part of childhood where you learn to tune out rambling or irrational adults, and, being sensitive, I felt very bad when she would say these things.

My mom explained that often there are a few kids in the class who behave badly or don't do their work or don't follow instructions, but that the teacher gives admonishments to the whole group. That's just how school is. Presumably, and unspoken, of course, was the idea that teachers did this to save time or to warn others not to commit the same errors.

While I'm certainly guilty of doing this myself--although I try not to be insulting and I'm sure I've never used the word "appalling"--, it has led me to wonder, over the years, if this is really the only way.

I had a similar reaction in a department meeting recently. This particular colleague is known to go on long tirades, and the modus operandi for the rest of us has just been to ignore it and let it pass. But I had had enough one day. I argued back. Later, my colleagues were surprised that I cared so deeply about the issue and wouldn't just nod and let him go on. After all, I was supposed to assume that he was just venting; when he made broad generalizations about all the bad things instructors are doing, it was assumed that he meant "present company excepted" and why did I feel hurt? He's not talking directly to you. Well, if what he said didn't apply to the present company, why did I have to sit there and listen to it? As in the fifth grade, I wondered why I was listening to this hostility when it supposedly had nothing to do with me?

I'm sure students wonder the same things. When students switch from home schooling to mass schooling, they often marvel at the waste of time listening to things that do not apply to them. And why should they have to listen to these things? Our society, for convenience and cheapness, of course, makes it impossible for teachers to differentiate instruction and individualize things to meet students' needs the way we ought to, the way they, those students, deserve. We can't fix that, of course, so all we can do as teachers is try to remember that there are lots of different kinds of kids in the audience and try to tone down the frustration and, dare I say, anger, that we express when we exhort them all. It justifiably upsets the sensitive kids, and sometimes the kids who need it most are accustomed to tuning you out anyway.