In His System, Behavior Challenges Lead to Better Relationships

I have been a teacher for seven years. Six of those years were at American public schools; one year was at a university in China. This year, I’m teaching fourth grade English at a Chinese private school. Teaching is my ideal job. I delight in finding creative ways to make information relevant and accessible to distinctive learners. I am pretty confident in my ability to teach well. There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance and maybe I was jumping between the two too much. It doesn’t matter if I was due for some humility or not, but yesterday I had an experience that took me down several notches.

One class’s behavior is really challenging. I spend most of the forty minute class trying to get the kids to sit down and stop teasing each other. A handful of students are openly defiant, talking back to me in Chinese when I discipline them. Yesterday, a boy continually rummaged through his desk, instead of participating. It became distracting, as he took things out to show the other kids. I eventually picked up the desk, moved it to the side of the room, and gave him his English book. He threw the book on the floor. I ignored him and kept teaching.

My goal was to eliminate distraction and follow through on my expectation that everyone in class participates. Still, I know I acted in anger. After class, I was still angry and I spewed the story to my American teammates, not caring that my Chinese co-workers were listening too. Later, in the teacher’s cafeteria, a head teacher spoke to me with someone translating. She explained how I set myself up as the students’ enemy and created a harsh learning environment. My response to the class’s behavior was too strict. I was shocked. I was still getting over how badly I felt I had been treated, and now I was in trouble? At the same time, I saw how my actions had created a rift in relationship. In that light, my self-justification was replaced with remorse. I began to cry, right there in the cafeteria, which was so humiliating. I didn’t sob or anything, but there was no hiding it either. I wanted to run far, far away, but managed to keep listening and ask a few questions about the best way to handle things in the future.

This incident has not really changed my views on classroom management. However, it has given me an opportunity to receive grace – from my father, even as I sat there being reprimanded, and this morning, from the head teacher, who apologized and reached out to me in her own indirect way. It has also been a place to practice putting relationship before my own needs. Relationships are highly valued in China. It takes a lot of time to develop trust. People will prioritize relationships far above any personal needs. Part of the reason I’m here is to be an ambassador of one who created the whole concept of reconciled relationships. So I apologized to the head teacher. I’m going to run the classroom more closely to the way she suggested.

Already today, there has been fruit in some of my other relationships at school. Maybe people feel like they can be real with the girl who lost it in the cafeteria! I’m swimming in grace and excited to see more doors opened so that reconciliation can be realized by everyone.