Nick Luxmoore’s working with anger and young people

From time to time you encounter some words that absolutely encapsulate something you were aware of but have never expressed and I’m barely a few pages in! I throughly recommend Nick Luxmoore’s 2006 book. I’ll be collecting all of his work.

Working with Anger and Young People https://amzn.eu/d/hewPJNO

https://www.wob.com/en-gb/category/all?search=Nick%20luxmoore

“Sometimes it's possible to see 'unofficial anger’ being passed up and down a school system. A student arrives in the morning, angry because of some altercation at home. That student quickly manages to have an argument with his teacher about being late for the lesson. The teacher, herself angry now, complains to her head of department about not being consulted over a decision. The head of department, feeling criticised, visits the headteacher to complain about having so many part-time staff in the department.

At this point, some headteachers withstand the anger coming at them and are able to keep thinking clearly. But others absorb the anger of their staff and pass it straight on to someone at the local education authority in the form, for example, of a refusal to accept a difficult student coming from another school.

Again, some education officials may be unmoved by this but others may retaliate, punishing the headteacher with a dismissive comment about the headteacher's school. The headteacher, rebuffed and angered, passes the anger back down to the head of department as an offhand comment about that department's classroom wall displays. The head of department, in turn, passes the anger down to the original teacher, remarking that the teacher's class seems unnecessarily noisy, whereupon the teacher, feeling that she can take no more, finds an excuse - any excuse - to punish the original student (and a few of his friends) with a detention. The student storms out of school and heads for home, ready to confront the parent with whom he had the original altercation.

Sometimes this process is played out over weeks. At other times, it all happens in a day.” Nick LuxMoore.