Challenges in Teaching: Sit Down and Shut Up

I think 90% of all problems in the U.S. education system could be solved if teachers were allowed to say stuff like “Sit down and shut up” and students had to do it.  That’s it.  Take the stigma out of “Shut up,” and most of our public school problems are solved.

That’s my bold claim for the day. 90% might be a little high, but you know what I mean.

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I’m not sure when “shut up” became a bad word, especially for teachers.  I remember teachers telling us students to shut up all the time.  For some teachers, “Sit down and shut up” was their version of “Good morning!”  When I was taking my secondary education classes in the late 1980s, I looked forward to that first day of public school classes when I could tell a room full of students to “Sit down and shut up” in my authoritative teacher voice.

When that moment finally came, the students told me that I was rude.

Some of them didn’t sit down or shut up.

Some of them got even louder.

A few parents called the principal to complain.  I might be lucky that I never got sued.

At the time, I felt cheated, ripped off, like I had wasted  four years of college for a job that had completely changed in four years.

Not really.

Honestly, I knew going in that my teacher behavior would be held to a higher standard than that of a lot of other teachers. I was young and therefore hadn’t earned the right to say ”Shut up” yet. Even in my inexperienced gullible teacher stage, I understood that.  Plus, I was an English teacher.  English teachers were/are expected to speak properly, even when perturbed. Coaches and history teachers and crusty old farts who didn’t care anymore could get away with a heartfelt “Shut up,” but not young English teachers, not unless there was an element of humor in it.

As far as “Shut up” was concerned, the closest I could probably get away with was “Wilt thou please shutteth up?”  Even then, it would take a certain kind of student to respond favorably to that type of admonishment, and young teachers usually don’t get those students.  That, I learned pretty quickly.

Some say that ‘Shut up’ is unprofessional, and, yeah, it isn’t, but who cares?  Since when are teachers treated professionally? But that’s for another blog post.

(former) TEACHER RANT!

Acquaintances and former coworkers might be surprised by this blog post because I wasn’t the type of teacher to say stuff like “Shut up” or “It’s my way or the highway” very often. For most of my career, I tried to present myself as stoic with an occasional burst of energy. I was diplomatic, with a quiet, more sincere (I hope) tone that most students responded favorably to.  A few students interpreted the quiet approach as a sign of weakness, but I learned ways to deal with them (isolation, mockery, turning the class against them before they turn the class against you. It can get ugly, but it must be done… unless you have a really supportive administration/community).

Deep down, however, I wanted to rule my classroom with an iron fist. That’s right. The quiet voiced diplomatic teacher had a secret desire to be a benign dictator. I would have used my authority wisely, I promise. As the de-escalating diplomatic (former) teacher, I know that I helped numerous struggling students get through their tough middle school years and that I made a difference that way. On the other hand, there was a steep cost that came with that.

Collectively, my classes were not as academically successful as they could have been if I hadn’t spent so much instructional time dealing with student behavior with such a diplomatic approach. Maybe the personal approach is more important than the academic, but that’s not how schools (or teachers) are judged or rated. Plus, working with so many students in intense situations took a toll on me personally. I was emotionally drained at the end of each day, so much so that I had almost nothing left for my family and my friends during evenings and weekends.

Big deal. A lot of professions/jobs are like that, non-teachers might say. And they’re right, but I felt like I was doing somebody else’s job instead of mine when I was caretaking somebody else’s kids having emotional meltdowns in class. I’m not asking for sympathy. I’m just explaining. Working in more of an “iron fist”environment might have given me a better chance to help more students do better academically and help me to have saved some personal relationships that I’ve lost along the way. I’m just speculating.

END OF RANT (I kind of lost steam)

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I’ve never believed that most students/parents were truly offended by “Shut up.”  I think the pretense of being offended is/was a fake out to distract the teachers from dealing with students’ overly talkative (and often defiant) behavior, and I can’t believe so many adults fell for it.  That’s how chaos can flourish in this world, by exaggerating the perceived negative effects of order while ignoring/downplaying the catastrophes of chaos. The arbiters of order should know better than to let agents of chaos get away with such trickery.

Since I’ve been out of the classroom for so long, I’m not offering advice to the educators who work with students today. I just know that nobody is happy with the U.S. education system, and if you want to improve it without spending billions of dollars on unproven programs, all you have to do is allow teachers to say “Sit down and shut up” and enforce the rules. That’s it.

90%? I like that number. I think I’ll stick with it.

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Enough about me! What do you think? Do I just sound like a cranky old man? Or do I sound more like a crusty old fart? Does 90% sound like an accurate number? Or do you think “shut up” is a horrible thing for a teacher to say to a secondary education student? If so, why. are you so sensitive? Haha! Leave a comment below and prove you’re the type of person who cares about education.

For more “Challenges in Teaching,” see…

Challenges in Teaching: Getting Students To Pronounce My Name Correctly 

Challenges in Teaching: Feeling Mediocre 

Challenges in Teaching: The Outsiders and Superman’s Mom

Long Story: The Sick Teacher |

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And in my ONE and only novel, one of the protagonists is… you guessed it… a teacher!

Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets blindsided by reality!

The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon !