The Responsibility of Instructors for Causing and Preventing Classroom Incivility

According to Morrissette (2001), academic instructors also play an important role in connection with student incivility, especially with respect to certain specific types of incivility, such as disrespect, disruption, and defiance on the part of students, in particular. That is because statements by faculty members in class can provoke negative responses by virtue of triggering retaliation for perceived insults or humiliation experienced by students because of the instructor. As Morrissette outlines the problem:

"Faculty can inadvertently provoke a violent cycle by publicly debasing, humiliating, or invalidating students (e.g., remarking that a question is ridiculous or unworthy of an answer) or by making snide remarks. From a systemic perspective, such antisocial behavior can invite hostile student reactions and retaliation" (Morrissette, 2001).

Morrissette goes on to suggest specific strategies that should be used by college instructors to reduce the occurrence of classroom incivility by avoiding some of the potential triggers. One element of that strategy is to avoid allowing arrogance to "blind them to the fact that incivility often begets incivility. For example, students can feel unfairly criticized, embarrassed, and/or disrespected by faculty who are either unaware of or indifferent to their inappropriate behavior" (Morrissette, 2001). Mills (1998) suggests that faculty "model appropriate behavior" (in Morrissette, 2001), beginning with the way they address students by name. That approach advocates minimizing the existing status differential attributable to the fact that...

Instead, the suggestion is that instructors offer students the choice of how they wish to be addressed.
Conclusion

Classroom incivility is an issue at all levels of contemporary education. It is less likely to be a problem in institutions of higher learning than in high school or grade school, but instructors may have fewer resources and recourses in higher education institutions because of the greater independence of students. Classroom incivility is more of a problem in community colleges than in 4-year colleges, mainly because student qualifications and motivation for learning are lower in the community college community than in more competitive academic institutions. Instructors share in the responsibility for preventing classroom incivility, especially with regard to those types of incivility that are triggered by responses of students to disrespect or embarrassment from classroom exchanges with instructors.

Works Cited

Gonzalez, Virginia and Lopez, Estela. "The Age of Incivility: Countering Disruptive

Behavior in the Classroom." AAHE Bulletin (April 2001). Accessed 9 December,

2011 online from: http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/incivility.htm.

Morrissette, Patrick J. "Reducing Incivility in the University/College Classroom."

International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning, Vol. 5, No. 4

(2001). Accessed 9 December, 2011 online from:

http://www.temple.edu/tlc/resources/handouts/problem_situations/Dealing%20wit

h%20Student%20Incivility.pdf