Staying Without Judgment
Donna Hyatt, Ed.D.
Steady insistence on listening can reveal that when a classroom becomes a place of safety rather than judgment, honest struggle can surface and real learning can begin.
Jonathan was a junior placed in my freshman English class because he had failed the course before. He was older than the rest of the students, and he knew it.
He was disruptive. He swore, argued with classmates, and pushed situations until they escalated. When it happened, I stopped the behavior, asked him to step into the hallway, got the class back on track, and then went out to talk with him.
“This can’t happen here,” I would say. Calm and direct.
Then I would ask, “What’s going on?”
Most days, he shrugged or said nothing. Sometimes he laughed it off. I told him I was willing to listen, and then we went back inside.
This pattern held for most of the fall, and it was exhausting. There were days I wanted to give up. Being interrupted repeatedly is triggering, especially when you are trying to hold a room together. It is hard not to take behavior personally, even when you know better.
I talked with my department chair about him. I was told not to invest the time. You’re not going to save this kid. His home life was rough. He probably wouldn’t graduate. I was encouraged to focus my energy elsewhere.
I didn’t.
What kept me going was a simple belief: behavior usually has something underneath it. Acting out is often the safest way a student knows how to communicate that they feel exposed, incompetent, or afraid. If I reacted with frustration or assumption, the conversation would end before it began. Curiosity kept the door open.
Late in the fall, standing in the hallway again, Jonathan finally said, “Do you know what it’s like to be a junior in a freshman class?” He paused, then added, “I failed English before. I don’t know how to write an essay. If I fail again, I’m done.”
I took a breath and replied, “Okay. Now that I know, we can work on this together.”
We met during his study hall, which lined up with my free period. We started at the beginning. What an essay actually is. How to organize ideas. How to look at a text and say something about it. It was slow work. Some days were better than others.
By spring, his grade had moved from an F to a C. He passed.
I do not believe we reach every student. Teaching does not work that way. But listening without judgment and approaching students with curiosity rather than assumption can create a space where it becomes safe to tell the truth. Sometimes that space is enough for learning to begin.
