Thriving as a Special Educator Tip #5: Find the Humor

It used to drive me insane when folks told me not to take the melt down of a student or of my classroom personally. Like I cared about the student, cared about my program– when something went wrong it WAS personal.  Maybe that advice works for you– don’t take it personally, shake it off, it isn’t about you. If so, more power to you. But for me, what worked besides coping strategies was having a really terrible sense of humor and someone to laugh about it with. I mean all of the yoga I did and the crazy amounts of tea I brewed also helped (more on those later in the series), but it was having a twisted sense of humor that helped me gain perspective on the stuff that went down.

So here’s what I mean. One day in maybe my second year of teaching, two students are having behavioral challenges. I taught a behavior support classroom, so no surprise there. All of the other students who had not gotten drawn in were out at extra recess as a reward for excellent choices. I was in the middle of the room catching up on paperwork while a male student in one corner of the room and a female in the other were… venting??… steam. Or maybe just steaming. Both were totally safe– no physical aggression or desire to leave their cool down areas, but they were loud. At that moment, without warning (see why you should be nice to front office staff? You want a warning!), two parents arrived to visit my classroom and see the program. As they walk in, the girl is screaming, “D$%%!” at the top of her lungs as the boy screams back, “P@$$!” No other words. Just those two back and forth and back and forth. The parents come in, look around, talk to me a minute, and leave. At first I felt so freaking embarrassed that my classroom was like that when they visited…. And then I talked it over with my colleagues and we started cracking up because, face it, it was kind of funny. What made it even better was that the parents got their child transferred to my program shortly after that because, apparently, they had liked what they saw. They liked the fact the classroom was safe, good behaviors were being rewarded, and I was not yelling at the students. 

Here’s another laugh or cry moment. A student who had spelling (and profanity–and actual safety issues that we cared about a LOT more than the profanity) challenges was having a rough day. He really did not want to work on his spelling intervention. He wound up in the adjoining classroom to mine working with the behavior specialist and was feeling pretty hot under the collar because he did NOT want to spell. When I walked in, he really wanted me to know that I was a bitch. The behavior specialist decided this was an excellent moment to work on spelling and pretended not to understand until the student could spell the word correctly. After about ten minutes of increasingly frustrated yelling, the student finally spelled the word (skipping the t but his lesson was on digraphs so we didn’t care) and then began working on the rest of his spelling lesson. My choices were either to be upset or to find it freaking hilarious that the desire to insult me for wanting to do spelling with him was so great that the student would… spell. It’s laugh or cry and laughing worked a whole lot better for me than saying, “It isn’t me,” or “Don’t take it personally, he’s just having a bad day.”

Sometimes the stories were just … sweet? Almost sweet? Like one time a student was so proud that he had a gift for me and gave me these shiny rhinestone earrings. Talking to his case manager later, it turned out he had been developing some shoplifting issues… Or the time a student proudly gave me a headless McDonalds Happy Meal toy as a “gift,” and then came back after lunch to ask if she could have the gift back. Or the time a parent’s bosom started to snore during a meeting and I thought I was going crazy (turns out there was a REALLY well hidden baby under there). Or the time a colleague who should not have still been working stood in room 206, looked at her schedule- the same one she had had for WEEKS, and asked where room 206 was. 

I found that being able to see the humor in each moment, even if it was only later post yoga and destressing, helped me keep perspective on all of the things that happened every day, the things that could either drive me crazy or make me laugh. And my co-workers helped.

The same fabulous behavior tech from before just generally had an intriguing sense of humor. I am short. He is tall. What he liked to do was to find my cell phone and stick it somewhere high up in the classroom and start calling it so I would be teaching and suddenly hear my phone in the ceiling or from some other crazy spot. I then got to spend the next free period trying to figure out how to get it down, which he always found the funniest part of all. 

Anyhow, maybe for you excellent coping strategies are enough or you really can not take things personally. For me, reframing and finding a way to see how ridiculous things were was what kept me sane, kept me coming back to work, and kept me from burning out even when it felt like nothing I was doing was working. What helps you maintain perspective when things go sideways? Does, “Don’t take it personally” work for you? If not, what does?