Working in schools is challenging. The staffroom should be a place of support, camaraderie and shared purpose—but in some schools, it becomes a space clouded by negativity. Sadly, many early career teachers are told, the one place in the school to avoid…is the staffroom. They are told that is where misery congregates to share how terrible their lives are.
I suspect many teachers have had an experience like this: A paper airplane, ball of paper, or pencil flies through the air, or somebody makes an obnoxious noise. The object is probably aimed at another student, and it may or may not hit the intended target. The noise is just meant to be funny. You can tell the general area it came from, but you don’t really know who the culprit is. It’s frustrating because that kind of behaviour does not contribute to a learning community. What do you do? It’s not uncommon for teachers to first yell something like, “Who threw it?” No one admits to it, and then the teacher will punish the entire group. Here’s a definition…