25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them

Mistake 22: Unethical Behavior
The students were scared to death, yet no one spoke. We stayed inside the classroom
until the evacuation team came to inspect the room. They were shocked to find us still
inside. About fifteen minutes had passed. We never saw our teacher again.
The most difficult aspect of a
crisis is the critical period of
indecision that usually triggers the
fight or flight response. The teacher
in this scenario made the inappropriate
choice of running away from the
crisis and abandoning her students.
As a result, her students were not
evacuated immediately. This teacher ’ s
actions could have put her students’
lives in jeopardy.
Skilled teachers know that in a
crisis situation, flight is not an
option, especially when children are
involved. The nature of the relationship
of teachers and students places
the teachers in loco parentis (in the
position of the parent) as dictated
by common law (Reutter, 1975). Competent
professionals recognize the
serious nature of their charge and act
SCENARIO 22.8
Sleepy Slacker
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reasonably to protect the welfare
and best interests of the children.
Sometimes the call of duty dictates
that teachers place their students’
best interests before their own. In this
scenario, the teacher had a responsibility
to stay with the students and
make sure that they were evacuated
safely. Parents have a right to assume
that schools will do everything in
their power to protect their children.
Most teachers are good, dedicated
people who would do whatever is
necessary to protect their students. In
the 1999 Littleton, Colorado, shooting
crisis (Shore, 1999), a teacher sacrificed
his life for his students. The
teacher in this scenario was not prepared
for this aspect of teaching—
that’s probably why she was never
seen again.
I had a second-grade teacher that had a heart condition and required medication for it.
This medication made her sleep through most of the class. She would have the students
write to 100 over and over again while she slept. I missed out on so much learning that
year, that for many years I was labeled “slow” or “poor” student. This resulted in my
dislike and fear of school.
In teacher’s college, my preservice
classmates and I were
warned that if we had any visible tics,
twitches, defects, or other idiosyncratic
behaviors that we might not be
suitable material for teaching because
we would distract our students. At
the time, I thought that was a bit
extreme, although in support of that
notion, my entire class often focused,
for much of the class period, on the tic
that resided in the left eye of one of
my English professors. My professor’s
tic was distracting but very
minor compared to what the students
in this scenario experienced. The