This document provides an overview of Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) and guidelines for teachers to manage their emotions and thoughts when dealing with unruly classes or disruptive students. RET teaches that our thoughts directly influence our feelings and behaviors, not external events. The document outlines strategies teachers can use to change irrational or self-defeating thoughts into more constructive thoughts in difficult situations. It also provides language-based techniques for coping with negative feelings, focusing on solutions rather than problems, and defusing anger without blaming students.

1. TEACHERS, YOU’RE IN CHARGE
OF YOUR EMOTIONS
A Psychoeducation forTeachers Skill-Building Guide

2.  RET, or Rational-EmotiveThinking is a popular model of behavior
modification that teaches how we can get along better with ourselves by
means of disciplining our thoughts and emotions; with self-disciplined
and balanced thoughts and emotions our behavior has no other choice
but to fall in line. According to this school of thought, “our mental state,
either positive (e.g. feeling enthusiastic and hopeful) or negative (e.g.
feelings of frustration and mortification) do not directly link with the
factual event or with what happened (e.g. the class was unruly), but they
link directly with how we think about what happened (e.g. “I cannot
control my class!”).” For instance, thinking that we do not have the skills
to control an unruly class can easily lead to feelings of discouragement
and giving up on our students. Conversely, believing that although we
had a rough day, we do have the skills and endurance to get better
behavior from children takes us primarily to feeling both excited and
challenged (e.g. “What a lousy day I had today! Okay, what did I miss?
What do I need to do differently tomorrow morning so that I can deliver
more motivating and engaging lessons?”).

3.  RET is both empowering (i.e. we are in charge of our
thoughts, feelings, and emotions) and action-oriented.
About the latter, RET teaches us that, if we do not like how
we are feeling about our class, the first thing we need to do
is to change the way we think about the class, for example,
perceptually shifting from “unruly class” to “unmotivated
class.” Simply put, RET helps us focus on alternative ways
of perceiving and interpreting old problems, reminding us
that we are the ones responsible not only for what we
think, but for how we feel and what we do in response to
what we think. Even when we feel dissatisfied with our
unruly class, we do not need to feel distraught or
discouraged by the situation. Dissatisfaction should lead to
changes (e.g. in teaching style, strategies, and/or planning),
not to emotional turmoil and low self-confidence.

4.  Wrapping up, according to RET, we achieve
emotional health by learning to think more
the way we want to feel and think less the
way that we do not want to feel. Consistent
with rational-emotive principles, next are
some guidelines to help us feel vibrant and
energized from Monday mornings to Friday
evenings…

5. Guidelines
 Stop blaming yourself for errors and mistakes.Tackle errors and
mistakes by using more self-correction (i.e. corrective thoughts)
and less self-blame and self-condemnation.
 Consistently monitor your thoughts, so that you can catch
distraught or irrational thinking (i.e. thoughts that cannot be
supported by evidence), switching it into better-adjusted rational
thinking (i.e. thoughts that can be supported by evidence).
Honestly but fairly, examine your thought processes so that you
clarify your beliefs about difficult situations such as an unruly
class or a habitually disruptive student. Mentally dispute any self-
defeating belief that is putting you down. For example, ask
yourself, “Where is the proof that I’m such a failure as a teacher?
How can this belief be disproven?Where does it say that teaching
needs to be hassle-free?” Sensitivity to our feelings, both positive
and negative, through self-awareness of those specific thoughts
that trigger the feelings is considered a preventive tool in
avoiding troubling emotions.

6.  When we believe something, we act as if it true.The old saying,
“Whether we believe we can or we cannot do something, we are
right!” fits perfectly into the rational-emotive model. Changing
our thoughts and beliefs allows our behavior to change, and our
behavior will change much quicker if we give ourselves a strategy
or a plan to reach our goal.
 When a disruptive student or a difficult class troubles us, our first
choice is to decide how we will react. For instance, we can treat
the child either as a threat or as a challenge; perceiving the child
as a threat generates mostly feelings of inadequacy and
frustration. On the other hand, perceiving the child’s behavior as
a challenging puzzle to solve will revitalize and motivate us.
Reframe the situation with the student or class so that you shift
perceptually from “What a pain in the shoulder this child is!” to
“I’m amazed at how challenging this child is!”

7.  To conclude, we can increase our sense of self-control and self-
confidence by checking our feelings periodically and analyzing our
reactions (behavior) in response to those feelings. Do our feelings and
behaviors align with self-empowering thinking or with self-defeating
thoughts?When feeling down, go deeper, answering, “Am I expecting
the worst of this situation?” or “Am I predicting a disaster?” Debate any
pessimistic thinking early (e.g. “Where is the evidence for my belief?”);
the sooner we recognize and debate irrational thinking and beliefs, the
better we feel later on.Think both of alternative ways of interpreting the
situation and of as many solutions as possible for the situation.You can
answer, “How else could I think about this?” or “What other points of
view are there?” Most importantly, always, and I do mean always, hold
yourself, not the situation or student, fully responsible for any kinds of
feelings that you may have.Your greatest power is the power to choose
how you are going to feel and to react to the situation: threatened or
challenged; burned down or re-energized. So, choose wisely; choose to
feel challenged and re-energized.

8. Some strategies to cope with negative
thoughts and feelings
 On this section, you will find additional language-based strategies that
school-based staff can use to cope with negative feelings and self-
defeating thoughts when things get out of hand with a hard to handle
student.With minimal variations, parents can apply these strategies
when handling children having difficulty complying with rules.
 Focus on a personal goal so that you shift your attention from where you
have been to where you intend to go; in other words, shifting from a
past-oriented focus or negative view to a future-oriented focus or more
positive view.
 Create mini-goals (shorter and easier to do) branching from your bigger
goal so that you move, incrementally and in more manageable terms,
from where you feel you are placed in the present to where you aspire to
be placed in the future.You can create a timeline such as: in two weeks,
in four weeks, in three months, in six months, and finally, by the end of
the academic year.

9.  Change your approach from problem-focused or what is
wrong with the situation to solution-focused or what you
can do to improve the situation; for example, listing things
you can do to improve a strained teacher-student
interaction. With a problem-focused approach, we are
mostly labeling children (e.g. oppositional, messy-sloppy,
or disruptive); a solution-focused approach, on the other
hand, focuses us (as in the teacher with the student) on
processes (i.e. strategies, steps and procedures).
 Put any conflictive teacher-student interaction in the past
using the past tense of verbs (e.g. argued, blamed, or
overreacted). Always talk about strained interactions with
students and disruptive behaviors as something happening
in the past, even when it took place five minutes earlier.

10.  Use temporal language using words and phrases such as someday,
soon, in the future, and sooner or later. For example, you can say,
“Someday, when I no longer feel angry…” Or, “In a near future,
when all hurt feelings are healed…”
 Decontaminate your language from flawed presuppositions (i.e.
those presuppositions that are a constant reminder of how bad
the situation feels to you); use more presuppositions of positive
change instead. In the first phrase above (“Someday, when I no
longer feel angry…”), we are already making a powerful
presupposition of change: angry feelings are temporary; they
simply don’t last forever. In the second phrase (“In a near future,
when all hurt feelings are healed…”), we are presupposing that
more positive and optimistic feelings are around the corner for
everyone involved in the situation, including the teacher.

11.  Redefine disruptive behaviors from “disruptive
student” to “disruptive behavior.” Similarly, change
from “this child is a behavior problem” to “this child
has a behavior problem.”This important reframing of
the situation will help you steer clear from blaming
and labeling children. Most importantly, blaming the
child’s behavior or his/her actions instead of blaming
his/her character or identity takes us closer to
problem-solving, helping us identify those specific
steps that the child can follow to “fix” the problem
behavior. Always keep in mind that behavior can be
fixed more easily and way faster than character or
identity.

12.  Use strategic language: People don’t fail; strategies fail.This
is as valid for teachers as well as for students; using
strategic language keeps everybody focused on strategies
and procedures, instead of getting stuck on blaming each
other and in feeling resentful. Strategies, techniques, and
procedures we all need; blame and guilt, we do not. If what
you are doing presently is not improving the conflict or the
problem behavior, just change it and start doing something
different. Stop wasting your valuable time on ineffective
strategies or procedures.
 “Clean” your body behavior of any negative body language
that you may be projecting (e.g. head down, slouched
posture, sighing, clenched fists, etc).

13.  Defuse angry and hostile feelings by labeling angry feelings
in a less intense way; for example, “I feel annoyed,” “I feel
irritated,” “I feel mortified,” or “I feel frustrated with this
situation.”You can use a similar approach to defuse
children’s anger; for example, telling a distraught child,
“You feel frustrated with this situation” or “Your feelings
were hurt” rather than constantly criticizing the child for
his/her negative feelings and acting-out behaviors.
 Change permanent language such as “always-never” (e.g. “I
always get this wrong” or “I will never get this right”) to
temporary language such as “sometimes” or “occasionally.”
For example, saying instead, “Occasionally, I get this
wrong” and “Sometimes, I overreact, and then is harder for
me to listen empathetically to what this child has to say.”

14. Child guidance, an essential skill for
teachers and school counselors
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