Drama

Teachers, don’t feed the beast called drama.  In the spring semester it’s easy to be overtaken by the emotional climate of the school. Everyone is “on edge” and this can bring out the worst behaviors in even the calmest of individuals. The problem is that survival emotions bring out the survival emotions in others. And this type of negative energy can “suck the marrow right out of the bone” – as my wife so eloquently puts it.

The brain can only consciously attend to one thing at a time. So, I find it helpful to keep my focus on whatever it is that keeps me calm throughout my day. When I worked at a residential treatment center, I had a mantra on which I focused: “I am the adult. I am the adult. I am the adult.” I had to remind myself of this daily, as not to digress and exhibit the very behaviors I was trying to extinguish in my students.

Rather than feeding the drama of a situation, choose to be the emotionally stable figure among the craziness. Refuse to get wrapped up in the tension and stress around you. Just as one drop of rain can raise the level of the sea, one calm individual can exponentially quell the negative emotions stirring throughout a school at this time of year. Be that one individual.