25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them

Mistake 1: Inappropriate Discipline Strategies
to sleep in class. If there are no significant
problems at home such as
abuse or having to help support
the family, the teacher should use
SCENARIO 1.26
Boys Will Be Boys
conventional ways of waking a
sleeping student. If the sleeping continues,
a referral to the guidance
counselor may be appropriate.
When I was in the third grade, a boy raised my dress and I screamed. My teacher got
mad and made me go stand in the hall. The boy did not get in trouble, but I sure did.
This was, believe it or not, the first time I remember getting in trouble in school.
A supposedly harmless prank
such as a male student raising
this little female student’s dress is no
longer as widely accepted as it once
was. For years, little boys did little
naughty things of a slightly sexual
nature to girls with few, if any, consequences.
As a matter of fact it was
widely accepted and often joked
about. When I was in grade school,
girls had to be careful that boys did not
try to put mirrors on the floor to look
under their skirts or they had to fight
off young boys who tried to touch
them on private parts of their bodies.
Girls can be very humiliated, hurt, and
shamed by such acts. During my
senior year in high school, we all autographed
each other’s sweatshirts. I
was mortified when a boy came up to
me and drew two circles with dots in
the center around my breasts. He
laughed and everybody thought it was
funny. I did not think it was funny
because I had to walk around like that
all day. When teachers dismiss these
acts, they are part of the problem. The
teacher in this scenario added insult to
injury when she punished the young
woman for screaming and did not
punish the young man.
Today’s savvy teachers would
never punish the victim and ignore
the perpetrator. Informed professionals
know that sexual harassment
is a real issue that is not to be
ignored. They also know that there
is a delicate balance between child
behaviors that are innocent and
those that actually fall into the category
of sexual harassment. The
astute teacher has to be very careful
not to compare minor child behavior
with mature behavior that has
sexual overtones. The explicit sexual
content of some TV programs may
encourage children to model some
of the adult behaviors they see in
these programs. The teacher should
recognize that a first-grade boy kissing
a little girl on the cheek cannot
compare to a much older boy looking
under a girl’s dress. Some states
are taking a very hard stand on children
sexually harassing other children.
Good teachers would make
the class aware that such behaviors
cannot be tolerated and that there
are serious consequences should
they occur. The teacher should
make sure that parents are aware
of any laws pertaining to sexual
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