Complaining about students in the faculty room does nothing to support the educational environment. Once you find other teachers who enjoy complaining about students, it becomes much easier to get into a routine of complaining to each other. This then makes it easier for other teachers to join right in. What usually goes along with this is a great deal of talk about how the student’s lack of achievement or bullying and behavioral problems in the classroom are caused by outside circumstances such as family or the child’s intergenerational tendencies (e.g. “I had his father as a student and I am not surprised. He is just like him”). The problem is that you take the focus off of yourself and the things you can do to be part of the solution. Plus, if you’re badmouthing your students, and other teachers are feeding right into it, you will walk back into your classroom with a greater dislike and additional reasons for having a negative attitude toward those students.
