{"id":141,"date":"2011-11-07T20:22:27","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T20:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2011\/11\/07\/reframing-student-anger\/"},"modified":"2011-11-07T20:22:27","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T20:22:27","slug":"reframing-student-anger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2011\/11\/07\/reframing-student-anger\/","title":{"rendered":"Reframing Student Anger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Success looks like failure sometimes. When your students angrily resist<\/a> what sociology has to teach them it’s easy to see it as a failure. You can either blame yourself (I could\u2019ve taught that so much better!) or you can blame the student (well if they don\u2019t want to learn, they can kick rocks!). However, I have a novel suggestion; you could say, \u201chow wonderful! I\u2019m thrilled that our class created such a stir within you.\u201d1<\/a> <\/p>\n

Before you can fill a knowledge gap the student must become aware of it. Sociology involves worldviews and many times the knowledge gap students have are firmly entrenched in their worldview. So when students discover their knowledge gaps in the classroom, they create a sort of cognitive dissonance between their present (gap filled) worldview and a sociologically informed worldview. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable; even maddening.<\/p>\n

Sociology is inherently subversive. Great educators are inherently agitators. When the two combine, no one should be surprised that some students become upset.<\/p>\n

When a student pushes away it\u2019s an opportunity to pull them closer. I\u2019ve found anger is a common side effect of learning. The moment when the student expresses their anger (an All CAPS EMAIL, a classroom rant, a dramatic storming out of the room, etc.) you are presented with a simple choice; return their volley with the swift authority afforded to you by your titles, statuses, and degrees or reframe the situation, take the high road, and show your class that this room is a learning environment. Put simply, you can go to war with a student over his\/her knowledge gap or you can reframe the situation and work together with the student to fill in that knowledge gap.<\/p>\n

Reframing The Situation<\/h2>\n

There are really two separate perspectives that need to be reframed yours and your students. You need to see a distant angry student as a wonderful opportunity and your student needs to see their knowledge gap as a momentary inconvenience that can be assuaged by sociology. You\u2019re a professional, so I assume you can handle your end of this reframing process. Your students may need more help, so I\u2019ll focus here on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you said that today I could tell you were talking about me,\u201d is a common statement I hear after class from students.2<\/a> I teach 300 students in a movie theater, but somehow students are certain<\/em> that what I said in class was directed at them<\/em>. We all do this; personalizing impersonal statements. Typically when students are angry about something discussed in class it\u2019s because they have made this mistake. They feel like what sociology has to say about trends, averages, and international level data is somehow an indictment about their individual life or their family. \u201cMy family worked hard for everything they earned!\u201d \u201cWhat you said about <\/strong> people can\u2019t be true because (I\/my family)\u2026\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re wrong about <\/em><\/em><\/strong> because (I\/my family)\u2026\u201d If a student is angry look for the personalization. Then ask, \u201cwhy do you think I was talking about you (or your family)?\u201d Students will struggle to find any evidence. From here you can help your students remember that sociology is primarily about trends, averages, movements at the group level.<\/p>\n

Anger makes us see in extremes. \u201cYou make it seem like __<\/strong> are doomed and helpless!\u201d \u201cI\u2019m sick of you telling us how white people have the world handed to them on a silver platter!\u201d \u201cIf the United States is so bad why don\u2019t you live somewhere else!\u201d Luckily it\u2019s pretty easy to neutralize this exaggerated thinking. I\u2019ll ask my students, \u201cWhat makes you think things are so terrible?\u201d Or I\u2019ll ask them, \u201cwhat was said in class that made you think whites have the world handed to them?\u201d What often seems to happen is students replace the findings of empirical sociological research with their reaction to them. I\u2019ll say in class, \u201c98% of the 128 Billion dollars of government backed loans by the FHA during the post WWII housing boom went to white Americans.\u201d But what they hear is, \u201cwhites are totally underserving of their social standing. I\u2019m talking about you; yeah you in the third row. You should be ashamed to be alive. I hate your guts, your family\u2019s guts, and everything you stand for.\u201d3<\/a> <\/p>\n

To neutralize the \u201cwhites are served the world on a platter\u201d we need to reframe it in less exaggerated terms. I do this by asking my students, \u201cDo you believe that your [social location] has an impact on your life? Does a Hispanic American have the same social experiences as a Native American, African American, Euro American or any other racial group?\u201d In a sense I am reframing the question from \u201care people of different social groups 100% different\u201d to \u201care people of different social groups 100% the same\u201d. The answer to both those questions is no. The truth is somewhere in the middle. I want my students to acknowledge that some groups experience social privileges to some degree. It\u2019s not a road paved in gold or highway to hell dichotomy. Its a matter of degrees (which vary depending on context).<\/p>\n

Helping students move away from extreme dichotomous thinking will defuse tension and allow them to refocus filling in their knowledge gap.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

When emotions and adrenaline surge in heated exchanges it\u2019s too easy to lose perspective. Remember that you have the power to redefine the situation and use their energy to help them learn in a clever pedagogical jujitsu.<\/p>\n

\n
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Footnotes:<\/p>\n

\n

1.<\/a> My all time favorite quote is by Tibor Kallman: \u201cWhen you make something that no one hates, no one loved it.\u201d It is better to be critique-worthy than to be average and boring. p.s. if you hate this post, please tell me so \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

2.<\/a> On a related note, if you are one of my current or former students and you\u2019ve read this post and thought to yourself, \u201cOh man he\u2019s talking about me! How could he!\u201d I promise I am not talking about you or any one student in particular. My reflections here are a conglomeration of experiences I have had at multiple institutions. The students that I\u2019ve had the privilege to work with are outstanding and I\u2019d argue better than most student bodies across the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

3.<\/a> I\u2019m fairly sure I don\u2019t need to say this, but I have NEVER thought this about any of my students EVER. That\u2019s my point here. That\u2019s why it\u2019s funny (if it is). I love teaching, I cherish the opportunity I have with my students, and I honor the time and attention they afford me with respect, decency, and compassion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Success looks like failure sometimes. When your students angrily resist<\/a> what sociology has to teach them it’s easy to see it as a failure. You can either blame yourself (I could\u2019ve taught that so much better!) or you can blame the student (well if they don\u2019t want to learn, they can kick rocks!). However, I have a novel suggestion; you could say, \u201chow wonderful! I\u2019m thrilled that our class created such a stir within you.\u201d1<\/a> <\/p>\n

Before you can fill a knowledge gap the student must become aware of it. Sociology involves worldviews and many times the knowledge gap students have are firmly entrenched in their worldview. So when students discover their knowledge gaps in the classroom, they create a sort of cognitive dissonance between their present (gap filled) worldview and a sociologically informed worldview. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable; even maddening.<\/p>\n

Sociology is inherently subversive. Great educators are inherently agitators. When the two combine, no one should be surprised that some students become upset.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1982,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30598],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching-philosophy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}