General

It's okay to be angry

Anger and rage in the classroom disrupt order and hinder learning. Aggression regulation and impulse control courses are doing well. 'We used to say: there is no school to educate, now we know better.'

Tekst Rineke Wisman - Redactie Onderwijsblad - 14 januari 2018 - 6 Minuten om te lezen

“Anger in a child is often unpredictable,” says Tamara Knoben, group teacher at Noorderlicht primary school in 's-Hertogenbosch. “It is suddenly there and only later can you reason why it was there. But when it occurs, you have to do something about it. Is proximity to you as a teacher sufficient or does the child need a time-out? What do you do with the rest of the children in the class? There is often so much going through your head; you never have a ready answer. ”

In eighteen years in front of the class, Knoben experiences increasing anger. She calls appropriate education one of the causes. “For example, I now have a little boy for whom the teaching material - despite adjustments to a lower level - is too difficult in all disciplines. That is frustrating.” She sees more causes. “Everything is going faster. We live in a performance society; that contributes to feelings of frustration. I also see anger in children of parents who are divorced or have already separated. And there are refugee children who, regardless of the misery they have already experienced, get angry because they cannot express themselves sufficiently in the Dutch language.”

Anger often builds up feelings of fear or frustration

Impotence

Anger arises when a child does not know how to act, ”says Lian Heestermans, group teacher at kbs De Vlieger in Zwolle. “Because it loses with football, doesn't understand the sum or has slept badly and that day everything is just stupid. Anger is not usually a student choice; it just happens to them. Because something does not work or because the teacher indicates and adheres to the boundaries, while the 'no' at home regularly becomes a 'yes', for example. ”

Anger often builds up feelings of fear or frustration, adds Ingeborg Dijkstra, teacher of religion and independent educational supporter in Maastricht. “Some children find it difficult if they don't know exactly what to do. Should it be with pen or pencil? Can I check it myself or does the teacher do that? One child just picks up a pen and gets to work. The other child is overcome by fear and doubt. You don't see anything outwardly, but when a classmate knocks a bottle of water over his notebook at that moment, that person can suddenly get an elbow against his diaphragm. ”

Rocket launch

Anger in itself is an expression of feelings that have nothing wrong with. The problem arises when this feeling leads to aggression. “The cause of the anger is the key to the solution,” says Dijkstra. “One child can explain this clearly, with another it takes time to figure this out. If the teacher doesn't have time for that, they come to me. ”

“When students run away from school, berate the teacher or kick others, a line is crossed,” says Marien Lokerse, who provides courses for teachers entitled 'the angry student'. “The way the teacher responds can help prevent behavioral problems,” he says. Just like Knoben, he notices that the number of students who need help is increasing. Five years ago Lokerse started this training on his own, which is reimbursed by the municipality in Den Bosch. He now has three colleagues and the age of the children is getting younger.

I am regularly surprised: is this one of those boys who kicks the teacher?

Self control

Registration is done in consultation with parents and school. Purpose: aggression regulation and impulse control. “It regularly surprises me: is this the little boy who kicks the teacher and scolds Mommy at home? Apparently calm pupils can also lose control completely. ” In the training 'I choose self-control', Lokerse talks to students about the situations in which they get out of their place with anger. He mimics situations with them and reflects with them on their feelings. What was the trigger that triggered the anger? Then, according to the Aggression Replacement Training by the American Arnold Goldstein, to increase their repertoire of solutions, so that from now on they hopefully do something other than name calling, kicking and walking away. That goes step by step.

Step one is then: inhale and exhale deeply, so that heart rate and blood pressure go down. Step two: count back from 20 to 11. “Because counting from 10 to 0 evokes the association with a rocket launch; you don't want to trigger that kind of excitement. The calm countdown causes the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps you think calmly, to switch on again. Step three consists of recalling a memory that you think back to with a smile.”

“When students have practiced this thirty times, it is fairly automated”, is Lokerse's experience. "I teach them to control their impulses and that it is cool to have that control."

Parents often don't have such good impulse control either

Concerned parents

The chance of success - lasting behavior change in case of anger - is greatest if parents and school are involved. “Sometimes I start with a boy and continue with his daddy,” says Lokerse. “Parents often don't have such good impulse control either. We used to say: a school is not there to educate, now we know better.”

Lian Heestermans works according to the 'Connecting Authority' method. The starting point is loving boundaries. “Many students have to learn to deal with their feelings. You try to find the right way together with the parents and the students. ” The essence is that the anger should be there, adds Ingeborg Dijkstra. After all, that is only an expression of impotence or fear. "A wink or a hand on the shoulder is sometimes enough to release the tension."

Heestermans: “Where I used to fight, I now first let a situation arise. You cannot control a student's emotions, only your own. If two students have had an argument, I don't have to discuss it with them immediately. If I wait half an hour, I don't have to solve anything nine times out of ten. Actually I'm trying out the heat of the moment to stay. That was a habit that I had to get used to. ”

The danger is that you start thinking: that bastard!

Jammer

What you should especially not do is get angry yourself, Ingeborg Dijkstra emphasizes. “If you think in a split second: 'Oh no, not that bastard again', then in your experience the child is a disruptor in the classroom. That is dangerous, because other children easily take over your emotions. ”
Group teacher Tamara Knoben recognizes this phenomenon in which the child is rejected instead of his or her behavior. Recognizable by the exclamation: "You always too!" And complaining in the staff room about 'difficult children' or 'annoying little boys'. “Parents and colleagues in particular easily adopt that judgment. 'Oh, has he been messed up again? Doesn't surprise me! ”

Trainer Marien Lokerse calls this the point at which a child 'has become his most striking bad characteristic'. It will no longer get a fair chance. It is then important to look at such a student through different glasses. Something he learned as a prison guard earlier in his career. "You look to the now and the future instead of back to everything that went wrong."