25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them

A fter
254
Epilogue
examining and analyzing hundreds of students’ scenarios that
depict their worst experience with a teacher, I have concluded that students
may experience varying levels of academic trauma, depending on
what was done to them and on their predisposition to react to such mistreatment.
Many of the student scenarios appear to meet the criteria for posttraumatic
stress reaction. Students as old as 56 remember traumatic events that
happened to them in first grade. Wetting their pants in the presence of the
class is a common event that is often recalled. Many of the students reported
flashbacks where they feel like they are reliving the event. Some report triggers
such as the smell of juicy fruit gum or chalk, plaid pants, and long red
fingernails that evoke a memory of the event. Many will avoid certain subjects
or activities because they connect them with the event. The long-term
negative effects of academic trauma underscore the importance of the need
for good, healthy student–teacher interaction. Teachers must shed the legacy
of punitive, teacher-centered educational practices of the past and unshackle
their hearts and minds to embrace a more caring, student-centered plan for
the future ...a plan that will restore the psychological balance in the classroom
and end academic trauma.