Today’s prompt is a little funny because as I read the first question, I was already thinking of dividing into two parts: toxic student behavior and toxic teacher behavior. Then I read the second question that prioritizes toxic student behavior with no mention of toxic teacher behavior and I had to laugh as I think the teacher, due to their inherent position of power, has a far greater ability to create a toxic environment in the classroom. Even when it comes to toxic student behavior, I believe the teacher often has more responsibility for said behavior than they let on or perceive.

Perhaps an example will help: Last year in my first quarter teaching an unfamiliar curriculum I had a student who every time I asked him to do anything outside of his comfort would make an ugly face, wrinkling his nose and contorting his features to let me know he did not care for the activity. At first, I attempted to ignore his negative attitude, but as the weeks wore on and I noticed the student sitting near him starting to exhibit the same behavior my tone when addressing him became more and more patronizing which, predictably, made things even worse. Luckily, midterm conferences soon came and I was able to talk to him directly and made a deal with him; no more patronizing tone from me in exchange for him making a good-faith attempt to do activities in class, even if they fell outside his comfort zone.

As teachers I think it is easy to project all the blame onto the students when it comes to toxic behavior, but if we think of the example I just related from the students’ perspective it is entirely plausible that my explanations of activities to my students was subpar before I ever began to take a patronizing tone with the problem student and perhaps his negative attitude was indicative of a larger problem the class had with my ability to coherently explain what we were trying to accomplish on a given day.

As far as a taxonomy of toxic student behavior there is that like I mentioned in my example which I would classify as the least serious kind. The worse levels are made up of unacceptable inter-student behavior such as domineering, racist, sexist, ageist, homophobic actions and so on. While the teacher does not have a say in terms of the various outlooks a student may have upon entering the classroom it their job at the beginning of the quarter to establish clear standards of behavior and failure to do so almost makes them as culpable as the student who is exhibiting the toxic behavior if/when it happens…