We Must Turn the Cheek and Practice Gracious Forgiveness for All Students to Unlock their Greatness
All students and youth should be treated with respect, empathy and dignity. Students who struggle to learn; students who cause harm; students who disrupt instruction; students who are truant, tardy, or absent frequently; students who show any of the behaviors that challenge our ability to do our work effectively; students who show behaviors that make their neighbors feel unsafe; they all deserve to have their dignity upheld.
These students become more angry, hurt, and disengaged when we make them feel unheard, rejected, and misunderstood for their behaviors. As adults, we need to do better at listening to students and understanding the why behind their behaviors. In the heat of challenging situations, this is hard, but once things deescalate it is absolutely necessary to support their growth and development.
These behaviors are symptoms of underlying problems. These behaviors show us that students are disengaged from their families, their schools, their communities, and other positive social networks. We cannot punish, coerce, or entice students out of disengagement. Disengagement is rooted in a self concept that tells students that they don’t have autonomy; that they are not seen in a positive-sense or like they belong in their community; and their community fails to provide them with a sense of competence and growth. This can be true at home, at school, or in the community.
These self-concepts are born of the routines, values, and interactions that students develop at home, at school, and in their community. When children and youth constantly feel like their autonomy, belonging, and competence are thwarted, they begin to disengage. This can look like resistance, with the student actively avoiding engagement with the school community and their family, or it can look like a shift into passenger mode, where kids feel bored and give their bare minimum to “get through it.” When children and youth disengage from their families, schools, and neighborhood communities, they find and create their own communities. Depending on their friend groups, this can get students into a lot of trouble as they move through adolescence.
The best way to re-engage students at school is through positive student-teacher-relationships and other autonomy-supportive practices. Skilled teachers know how to engage and re-engage students by supporting all students’ autonomy, belonging, and competence in their instructional practices and routines. Happy, engaged people who feel connected to a supportive community do not go about getting into trouble and causing harm routinely. They may make mistakes occasionally, but they have developed the socio-emotional and cognitive skills necessary to recover from their mistakes.
Our students who continue to engage in challenging, disruptive, and harmful behaviors need all of the opportunities possible to support their sense of autonomy, belonging, and competence. The traditional notion that we can exclude them from social activities and punish them into engagement obviously does not work. In fact, a lot of research I’ve reviewed says that reward and punishment schemes are highly harmful.
We need to recognize that their behaviors are a cry for help. They say, “help me; I don’t feel seen; I don’t know where I am going; I don’t know where I belong, what I am doing, or how I am going to get there.” As educators, we can help address those doubts. We can support students in developing a positive self-concept by focusing on creating the environmental factors that support intrinsic motivation.
We already have structures and routines in place at our most well-regarded schools and schools with transformational leadership that support these psychological needs. We need to invest more human capital, time, and money to ensure that our entire system is competent at supporting all students’ autonomy, belonging, and competence, especially during the critical years of social, emotional, and identity development experienced during middle school and high school. The people we become in middle school and high school set the trajectory of our lives.
