Entrance Slip (Sept 28) - Max Van Manen on 'Tact in Teachng'

Reading this article gave me much grief as a teacher candidate. It really highlighted the sensitivity that teachers must have when approaching students. Any single word could be misconstrued by students or parents or colleagues. The job of a teacher requires constantly assessing situational cues and realizing the effect of each and every action or word they utter. Knowing this, I wondered how it would be possible to do this in action in a classroom. Specifically in the article they mention a situation in which a teacher asks Jeff to come to the board and solve a problem. Jeff does so successfully, then the teacher exclaims "aren't we lucky to have a genius among us!" This is a good example of praising a student for well deserved merit, however I feel the teacher somewhat lacked tact in this situation. Although he wanted to praise Jeff, he could have done so in a manner which would not make the rest of the students feel self conscious or that Jeff was a "show-off". Many of the students reacted negatively towards this praise and maybe it was not because they did not think Jeff was smart or that being smart was looked down on, but maybe it was because they felt their own insecurities surface. In the teachers situation, they could have praised Jeff without putting down the other students. By telling the students they were "lucky" to have Jeff the "genius" around them, it could have made the other students feel inferior or even jealous and resentful that Jeff was placed above everyone else. Using tact in this situation could have given Jeff and the other students a more positive view on the situation. Another quote that I felt really worked with tact was again a scenario in which a teacher had a student who tended to act out and act up in class. So when they had a group discussion and his student, Tony, decided to speak up, even though the teacher knew Tony was joking and not taking the topic seriously he said "yes, that is very good Tony..." and continued with his suggestion very seriously. I think by doing this the teacher helped Tony feel valued and part of the discussion. It is possible Tony acted up because he was embarrassed about his academic skills and was never given the opportunity to feel smart, but when the teacher acknowledged him and his idea, Tony completely changed. The teachers use of tact and understanding of Tony's situation helped the student excel and feel valued in the classroom. It was impressive also that the teacher was able to just go with the flow with no hesitation, I feel like this may have required practical wisdom and prior experience or even prior thought and reflection about being tactful. Lastly, a quote from the text discussed how when teacher's tell jokes in class with the intention of taking the edge off a situation, this could be a loaded scenario: "it could also be a manifestation of the teacher's desire to be liked, to appear chummy, to seem flexible, approachable, to appear clever, etc...from their side, students may experience the teacher's humor variously as invitation, as critique, as fakery, as hint, as secret message, and so forth." This is an example of how a simple action such as a joke could be interpreted in many different ways. Even when joking around in an effort to break the ice teachers must consider tact of teaching. How will what they say be interpreted or misinterpreted. 
In all these three scenarios, I feel tact and practical wisdom, as it implies, is mostly obtained through experience, being in the practice. I think teachers and even just human beings develop the ability to read situations and also learn to word things in a manner which may come across in a more sensitive and understanding way. We must consider how what we say may make each student feel in the situation. I also think that part of these social aspects can be common sense obtained from every day life. It reminds me a lot about a quote my aunt used to tell me "if someone is sick there are two ways you can approach them, 1. what's wrong with you? 2. are you okay?" This always stuck out to me growing up because I knew exactly how each would make me feel. This truly helped me understand the importance of tone and the way things are worded. Both statements meant the same thing but they gave a completely different feeling to the person who was sick. I always tried to carry that knowledge with me through life and I noticed a difference in reception of my words when I approached them with a positive and sensitive spin. I think this is an extremely important lesson for teachers to learn.