Anger In The Classroom: Finding Freedom From Anger

Available on Amazon

Synopsis:

Teachers are given a great responsibility and challenge when they enter a classroom. The way they see, interpret, and act will determine the difference between effective or weak communication and teaching.

It is the task of the teacher to learn and prepare for this classroom setting, including the intrusion of trouble spots, such as anger in its many forms.

The overbearing emotion of anger has many faces and can lead to a complicated array of feelings, actions, and consequences. There is no set plan or technique that can address all of the hazards or nuances of anger.

Solutions may need to vary from one student to the next, or from one moment to the next for an angry student or teacher.

Although Anger in the Classroom is written specifically for teachers and other educational professionals, it also is an invaluable resource for parents and anyone else who works with the young.

Recognizing the difficulty that anger and similar strong emotions can cause in schools and in children’s lives, this book proposes techniques and practices aimed at preventing and circumventing the damaging effects of these destructive behaviors.

Goals of Anger in the Classroom for the Teacher/Reader:

- To realize the depths of knowledge, ability, and understanding currently hidden beneath one’s awareness
- To head off anger and its manifestations before it can take hold in the classroom or the individual
- To create a classroom environment that fosters appreciation, rather than resentment
- To provide specific practices for exploration and specific results
- To prepare the teacher for passing on experience and knowledge to students
- To rekindle the excitement and joy of teaching

Specific Features:

- Case stories illustrating concepts and techniques
- Specific exercises conducive to reader development and enriched classroom practices
- End-of-chapter questions for readers, especially college students on a path to teacher certification.

  From Kirkus Reviews

A practical manual that helps teachers manage their students’ anger—and their own.

According to debut author Nystrup, it’s hard to overestimate the potential influence teachers wield over their students—instructors incapable of controlling their own anger may pass that infirmity to pupils who do the same.

The good news, the author says, is that teachers can control their ire as well as that which emerges within a classroom. First, a teacher needs to rein in his or her own temper, a process that involves meticulous introspection.

To that end, Nystrup provides an Anger Manifestation Chart, a tool that tracks the various ways anger rises from, say, anxiety or a negative thought.

Once one looks inward and explores the sources of unrest, a “realm of deeper freedoms” can be experienced and imparted to a classroom that, while emotionally moderated, avoids devolving into “drab, torturous monotony.”

The author provides an abundance of practical counsel, using case histories to illustrate his principal points. He astutely acknowledges that “teaching is not an exact science” and so articulates broadly conceived advice that can be customized.

At the heart of Nystrup’s approach is the achievement of mindfulness, a sense of self-awareness that fosters mental and emotional equanimity.

He covers an impressive span of pedagogical territory, including special education classrooms, and incorporates a wide array of approaches, like yoga. His prose can be both vague and exuberantly optimistic.

His goal is to “facilitate teacher growth, including the ability to move through each teaching day with clear thinking, unclouded emotions, and a physical state of strength and endurance.”

Of course, no book or didactic strategy will deliver all that all the time, but Nystrup does thoughtfully examine the way in which a teacher can maintain a lively classroom that is also a peaceful “setting of trust.”

An intelligent, meditative, and effective guide to creating a productive classroom atmosphere.

-Kirkus Review - Posted on Aug. 16th, 2019

About The Author

Glenn Nystrup's passions have guided his teaching to numerous settings over a wide range of disciplines, including multiple academic subjects for all ages; the fine arts of stone carving, sculpting with teens and adults; technical rock climbing with teens; movement and dance with teens in New York City; and school navigation for struggling students.

Throughout, his aim has been to work with the heart as well as the mind and body, both for himself and students, sharpening perception and knowledge across all personal resources.