Julia G. Thompson

January 1, 1970

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What a Power Struggle Could Look Like in Your Teaching Practice

Do you recognize any of these students and their behaviors? Although students who want to engage in power struggles with the adults in their lives can appear in many different guises, there are some ways that teachers can unfortunately find easier to recognize than others.

• The class clown who disrupts the flow of instruction with attention-grabbing comments

• The defiant student who is openly confrontational, oppositional, and rude

• The passively aggressive student who consistently does not have materials or completed work

• The disrespectful student who somehow manages to be just rude enough not to be referred to the
office

• The student who complies with your directions--but at a deliberately and maddeningly slow pace

• The student who can do well in school, but who chooses not to

• The student who has perfected the fine art of eye rolling when you give directions

Is Intervention Worth the Hassle?

Sometimes the frustration, stress, misery caused by a student who wants to engage you in a power struggle may make intervention appear not worth the trouble.

After all, unlike some discipline problems, often power struggles build slowly and require long-term solutions. Many teachers find it easy to adopt defensive attitudes such as "As long as he's sleeping, he's not bothering anyone" and perhaps these:

• I can’t change her anyway. Why even try?
• Only five more minutes of class left…
• It’s May. Soon this will be another teacher’s problem.
• If the parents can’t do anything, why should I even try?

The long-term, heavy toll of a power struggle on students and their teachers makes action imperative. If teachers don’t choose to act to resolve a power struggle, the results can be disastrous:

• Loss of instructional time
• Distracted students
• Escalation of misbehavior
• Unhappy and unproductive students

When Should Teachers Intervene if a Student Misbehaves?

To avoid a power struggle with students, it is important to know when to intercede to keep a student’s misbehavior as nondisruptive as possible. It is far easier to prevent a student from misbehaving than to have to deal with a full-blown power struggle. One important component of this is to know when you should act. Try these guidelines:

• If a behavior is limited to one student, try to ignore as much as you can.
• If a behavior is brief in duration, try to ignore it, also.
• If a behavior is distracting other students, it’s time to act.

Mistakes to Avoid

• Losing sight of the student behind the behavior
• Not adopting a problem-solving approach
• Not dealing with the stressful effect a defiant student can have on your day
• Ignoring the problem until it becomes difficult to manage
• Not involving parents and other concerned adults early on
• Losing your cool and otherwise showing your anger
• Allowing yourself to engage in a power struggle
• Using an office referral as a solution instead of as a short-term relief
• Staying angry with a defiant student
• Allowing your body language to show your emotions

Five Techniques that will Help You Deal with Power Struggles

1. The first step you should take is to identify the positive and negative leaders among your students. Do this by observing their actions and the reaction of the rest of the class to them.

2. Turn negative leaders into positive ones with a delicate touch. What they want to do and are already pretty good at doing is simple: leaders want to lead. A wise teacher will give them plenty of constructive opportunities to do so—luckily there are plenty of those opportunities in every class period.

Here are just some of the small actions you can take that will allow leaders to be productive instead of destructive influences in your classroom. Class leaders can:

• Monitor groups working on class assignments
• Serves as a liaison between you and the class
• Speak for their classmates at assemblies and other meetings
• Take class votes, collect monies, assume responsibility for issuing texts and passing out papers
• Consult with other students about choices in due dates, projects, and materials, and report to you
• Run errands, pick up supplies
• Manage debates or panel discussions
• Be the reporter for small group discussions
• Lead a class discussion
• Serve as moderator in role-play situations
• Be the person who makes sure everyone knows what the homework assignment is
• Greet guests and be the helper when there is a substitute.

3. Be as overwhelmingly positive with your class leaders as you can. Never belittle them. You will only appear foolish as the rest of the class immediately takes sides sympathetically with their classmate. Praise class leaders as often as you sincerely can.

4. Reinforcing their positive behaviors is the best strategy you can take with students who want to engage you in a power struggle. You’ll gain their cooperation as well as the approval of the entire class when you make it clear that you want everyone in the class to succeed.

5. As a final suggestion for avoiding a power struggle, it’s important to maintain a level-headed approach to the problem. You won’t be able to win over every students despite of your obvious sincerity and very best efforts. If is unrealistic to expect otherwise of yourself and of your students.