The Professor’s Voice: Commentary on Education

By Dr. Randy Nelson
Professor Emeritus of Education
Editorial Contributor

Children who suffer from anxiety in emotionally unsafe classrooms must always be a high priority. Schools can be a hotbed for cruelty that results in rejection, labeling, gossip, in-groups, out-groups, and exploitation. The victims of such cruelty will sometimes endure low self-esteem and depression. In severe cases, unrelenting misery may lead students to chemical dependency, promiscuity, crime, self-loathing, futility, or suicide.

Such problems are not unique to any culture or country. They are the reality of our humanness, a bitter and painful universal truth. But to children suffering from high anxiety, these problems are unsettling evidence that life is a minefield.

Emotionally unsafe classrooms often do considerable damage to children who have faced day-to-day threats to their safety and survival. Because their brains have become skilled at scanning the environment for threats, highly anxious students often struggle to focus and learn. If students have been victims of trauma, perceived threats may cause the brain to bypass the learning areas in favor of those used for survival.

Teachers who embarrass students to get the upper hand are a threat. Unfairness is a threat. Favoritism, negativity, and inflexibility are threats. Militant teachers barking orders are a threat. The rattan is a threat. 

Case studies, altered to protect those involved, may illustrate the impact of emotionally unsafe classrooms.

Several years ago, an eighth-grade student I knew excelled at mathematics. To provide this boy with a more challenging learning experience, the principal moved him in late September to the ninth-grade mathematics class. The first day was surprisingly distressing. After taking attendance, the teacher angrily informed the entire class that he disapproved of the new student’s course change. He claimed it would disrupt the learning and put his record-keeping in disarray. Now fearing that he would again anger his teacher, the student could no longer concentrate. Anxiety prevailed, and he fell far behind, passing the course by only a few points. Every mathematics class thereafter was a struggle.

Some cases are more extreme.

I know the story of a nine-year-old boy whose teacher had recently warned the students about acceptable schoolyard behavior. Out of necessity, the little boy disobeyed, hoping not to get caught. But within one minute of the infraction, the enraged teacher confronted him with retaliating punishment. On hands and knees, the youngster was forced to crawl for several minutes, back and forth across the schoolyard. The assembled schoolmates jeered and howled at the spectacle. The result was humiliation and a long-standing struggle with rejection.

To the teacher, it was a display of authority. To the young boy, it was crucifixion.                                             

Another story involves a dictatorial elementary teacher who exercised authority by throwing his keys onto the floor and shouting the word fetch, thereby requiring offending students to retrieve the keys. After frequent subjection to this ritual, one young girl refused. With unflinching obstinance, she rebelled. Each time she defied the teacher, he lowered her grades. Unwilling to be treated like a dog chasing a stick, she stood her ground, failed every subject, and repeated the entire academic year. Two years later she dropped out of school.

Children in a classroom should never witness such misery. No child should endure such cruelty.

We must not forget that many classrooms are indeed emotionally safe—comfortable, non-threatening, accepting. The teachers within those rooms must be applauded.

Classrooms become emotionally safe whenever an insightful, considerate teacher prioritizes the students’ emotional well-being. Each student’s need for safety, competence, belonging, respect, trust, approval, and self-esteem will be met to various degrees. Failure will be viewed as an opportunity to learn. Harsh judgments will be replaced by understanding. Humiliation will be replaced by reverence for the human spirit. In such an environment, students will have the mental freedom to think, to be curious, and to learn.

The two boys in our scenarios are now well into adulthood. Both stayed in school and learned from teachers who inspired and empowered them. As university graduates, they have become advocates for the broken and marginalized. Both have developed compassion for youth living on the streets, perhaps the result of their own suffering. They have come to understand that life is about human restoration and unfailing respect for human dignity.

May all teachers empower Liberia’s students with such knowledge and wisdom.