Listen to thisTeaching students to handle frustration in the classroom can break through academic roadblocks and reduce related behavior problems. The author offers concrete strategies for introducing the concept of frustration to students, reducing classroom stresses, and integrating frustration-tolerance techniques into the regular curriculum.
The ability to persevere in the face of frustration is a trademark of success-an ability that is high on the list of self-control needs for youngsters. While teachers never purposefully try to frustrate their students, many everyday classroom affairs require the ability to manage frustration. Waiting for the teacher to answer a question, puzzling over a math problem, and stumbling through a reading passage are common, everyday experiences that can frustrate many students. To a large extent, how they handle these frustrations can make the difference between school success or failure.
Students with low frustration tolerance are easy to spot in any classroom. They give up easily and they avoid tasks that are difficult. The refrain “I can’t do it” is their mantra. Special educators call this lack of persistence in the face of difficulties learned helplessness. Consider these scenarios:
Helen, age 12, is stumped by a word during a spelling quiz. Instead of thinking, she clowns around, pretending to smoke her pencil like a cigarette. She leaves the rest of her paper blank.
Mark, a fifth grader, has difficulties calculating perimeters. His frustration is painfully obvious. He erases his answers so hard that he tears a hole in the paper.
Yolanda, age 11, throws down her reading text in disgust after bungling several words while reading aloud.
Just as a golfer with a high handicap ends up having to play the most difficult shots-out of the rough and sand traps, students who are handicapped by low frustration tolerance have to deal with low grades, dead-end relationships, and chronic struggles with authority figures.
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SELF-CONTROL CURRICULUM Impulses Control |
Those who are the least capable have the most challenges.
However, students who have learned to quit can also learn to persevere. The solution is to change the way they think about themselves and to teach them the skills they need to tolerate and manage their frustration. The Self-Control Curriculum provides practical guidelines for teaching frustration tolerance and the 19 other social skills that comprise self-control (see Table).
Learning frustration tolerance begins with the insight “I feel frustrated.” To learn how to cope with the stress that accompanies frustration, students need to understand what is happening to them. To their disadvantage, many youngsters do not even have the word “frustration” in their vocabulary. Without a semantic hook on which to hang their intense and confused feelings, students are unable to figure out appropriate ways to manage their angst. (Try to describe feelings of shame, grief, or disappointment to a friend without using the words!)
Rather than thinking through their situation, such youngsters resort to the primitive fight-or-flight instinct that is genetically wired in all of us at birth. They act without thinking, and their actions are almost always counterproductive. Apathy (“I don’t care”), anger (“I hate reading”), and despair (“I’ll never learn this”) are typical reactions of a young person who has learned that the best way to deal with a frustrating situation is avoidance.
Attaching a word to feelings is the first step in learning to deal with frustration. Within the Self-Control Curriculum, this is called teaching the concept. During the initial phase of the Self-Control Curriculum, vocabulary and student awareness of a specific self-control skill (i.e., frustration tolerance) are highlighted. The method is educational and straightforward. Utilizing research-based techniques for teaching social skills such as brainstorming, role playing, and children’s literature, the teacher introduces the term “frustration.” Students’ feedback is used to discuss the many faces of frustration, and students are encouraged to develop their own frustration-tolerance strategies.
Introducing the Concept
Lynn Potter, an assistant
special education teacher at Swift River Elementary School in
Belchertown, Massachusetts, introduced the concept of frustration
tolerance to a group of third graders in the following manner:
I wrote “frustration” on large, colored paper, and put it on a board with magnets. We tried to define it. Students brainstormed ideas about what frustration was. Some examples were “when someone bothers me,” “it is a feeling,” “when I get angry,” “when I feel shaky,” “when my mouse gets lost,” “my sister frustrates me,” and “a funny feeling I get when mom yells at me.”
Next, the students looked up the word “frustration” in the dictionary. We wrote the definition on the board. We then proceeded to discuss “things that frustrate us in school.” Some of their frustrations included homework, math facts, “when the teacher makes me write ‘Don’t talk out loud,’ 20 times,” and not going outside for recess.
With our school list on the board, I asked the students to think for a few minutes about things in their lives that make them frustrated. They made lists and drew pictures. This went over well. We had lots of discussions about feelings-why we feel frustrated and how we can cope. We have our pictures on the wall, and conversations about frustrations have continued daily since.
As this lesson indicates, Lynn recognized that the first phase in teaching students how to tolerate frustration is to help them understand what frustration is (e.g., “that funny feeling 1 get when mom yells at me”) and how frustration affects their daily lives.
Teaching Self-Control within the Curriculum
The
next phase of the Self-Control Curriculum is merging self-control
instruction with elements of the general curriculum. Teachers cannot be
expected to set aside a part of each day for “social skill” training
time. There are too many demands on teachers in terms of proper use of
instructional time for them to take on new responsibilities. At the same
time, students need to see how self-control skills such as frustration
tolerance are relevant throughout the day, in and out of school. Merging
self-control instruction with the general curriculum is not only the
most efficient way to teach self-control, it is the best method for
helping students to generalize their social-skill development to other
situations.
Colin Harrington is the language arts teacher at Hillcrest Educational Center, a residential school for adolescents with special needs in Lenox, Massachusetts. What follows is Colin’s approach for merging creative writing with frustration tolerance.
“I have found that getting students to write who have low self-esteem and a history of failure with written language taps directly into their problems with tolerating frustration. When asked to write anything, their behaviors range from groans of disapproval to outright opposition. This generalized attitude can dog an entire lesson. But I know these kids want to write. They tell me all the time. They want to write letters, they want to write sports stories, and they want to write personal narratives. But the self-conscious fear of failure stops them cold!
I have found solutions to this intolerance for frustration in writing from cues provided by my students. First, they need to relax before they begin writing. Second, they need to know the whole class supports them in their efforts. Third, they need to have a sense of accomplishment with every attempt.
Relaxation
When students come to my class, I stop
each one individually at the door. I greet them, and they greet me in
return. This shifts the focus from the chaos of the hallway to one of
respect and order. They all seem to want to know that I am taking charge
of the class from the start. I direct each student coming through the
door, one by one, where to sit and how. They should have feet on the
floor, eyes forward, and they should not touch the pencil already placed
on their desk. Once everyone is in the classroom, I immediately request
a moment of quiet. We all sit at least one full minute in silence. Next,
we take a deep breath through the nose, hold for three seconds, letting
go with a sigh. I play some quiet, soothing music. When students begin
their writing in this relaxed state, frustrations are much less likely
to arise or be so troublesome.
Support
When students become frustrated because
they are having trouble imagining a story to write, I supply them with
vivid stock photo books easily found at professional printers or
publishing agencies. I pair up students to make a story about a picture
or two of their liking in the book. Or, we look through the book as a
class, and as I hold up various pictures, we go around the room and
create details, big and small, that make up a story. I may begin writing
the story on the board and allow the students to copy the first part.
Allowing students to copy parts of stories also helps them to get
through the initial frustration of writing. To keep the momentum
rolling, I allow students to help each other research spelling and
grammar rules. It often helps to have another group breathing session
and a moment of quiet when the writing gets tough.
Accomplishment
I often give easy assignments for writing. I
may ask the students to tell me a tall tale, some big lie, or to write
me a story about wishes or dreams. I allow them to narrate these stories
verbally, sometimes for the entire class. Students feel accomplished
when their work entertains the class. They take pride in their
imagination and storytelling abilities. Soon they cannot be held back
from writing them down.
Another way I build in accomplishment is by beginning a writing assignment with art work. I make photocopies of natural objects, such as leaves and pine cones.
With the pine cones, I ask the students to color in the parts and then make the cone into a fish-a wish fish. I ask them to write a wish paragraph on the back of the page and share it with the class or just with me. Then we paste another piece of paper on the back and cut it out. The fish can be displayed on a bulletin board. The writing is secret this way, but any public display of student writing, such as decorated haiku, is good for increasing a sense of accomplishment, while decreasing the frustration of failure.”
Mr. Harrington uses a technique that Fritz Redl called “hurdle help.” He recognizes the difficulties involved with writing, and builds in support to help his students, many of whom have a history of school failure, manage the inevitable frustrations encountered when they attempt to write. The merging of curriculum with self-control development presents students with here-and-now models of how frustration can be managed, while highlighting the benefits of making the effort. This kind of natural consequence is a powerful positive reinforcer for persistence in the face of difficulties.
Teaching frustration tolerance throughout the curriculum
Students with low frustration tolerance need insight into how
frustration affects them, and they need help in developing coping
strategies. Literally every area of the general curriculum provides
mini-lessons about tolerating frustration. For example, consider these
frustration tolerance-teaching activities:
Social Studies:
Talking about the feelings of famous people adds vitality to social
studies and provides positive models — a critical missing element in the
lives of many young people-as well as teaching about the benefits of
frustration tolerance. Have your students discuss whether Marie Curie
ever had frustrating days. How about Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jackie
Robinson? How did they cope with frustration? Or consider Stephen W.
Hawking, the eminent expert on black holes in space. He is totally
disabled by motor neuron disease, but he is the top theoretical
physicist in the word. How did he do that? Examining the process of
scientific inquiry, with its painstaking attention to detail, provides
real-life examples of how frustration tolerance leads to success.
Mathematics and throughout the curriculum: Tape a “frustration
barometer” on the desk of each student, using a piece of paper with a
colorful design. Tell students to make a check on the frustration
barometer each time they feel frustrated. Students do not have to
explain why they put a check on their barometers. Keep a record of these
incidents of frustration. After a period of a week or two, have students
tally their total number of frustration incidents for the period of data
collection. Have them make their personal frustration tables or graphs,
first by days and then by subjects. Discuss the results. Try to identify
and record reasons for student variations in frustration. Bring in
copies of USA Today to show students various ways of showing data with
tables and graphs. Encourage students to be creative in their own table
and graph design.
Conclusion
Students must see the benefits of
self-control skills, such as frustration tolerance, before they will
invest themselves in personal change. As my 12-year-old daughter
recently remarked, “I’m like most people, Dad-I don’t like change.”
Change is hard and it requires personal commitment. The more
opportunities students have to observe how each self-control skill
presents itself in life and in the classroom, the greater the likelihood
they will invest themselves in changing their own behavior.
From: Reaching Today’s Youth, Vol 1 No.2, pp23-26
