“Don’t smile until Christmas.”
How many times, as teachers, have we heard that gloriously miserable phrase? How many of us were force-fed it in our first year of teaching and were encouraged instead to rule as an authoritarian with no hint of the human being under our steely veneer?
It is advice that has been consumed by generations of teachers, some of whom will sprint (miserably) past that Christmas benchmark and then just never ever smile at young people.
These non-smiling teachers are working hard to reduce the already depressingly small number of times that adults apparently smile during the day: perhaps as few as 20.
Teacher wellbeing: why a smile is important
Perception
How would we feel, as adults, if we spent hours and hours every week in the same room with someone who never smiled? What would we think they thought about us, if they didn’t display the most obvious and most universal sign of pleasure towards another person?
Let me be clear: in challenging the “frown until Christmas” rationale, I’m not advocating some sort of clown-type caricature, with endless smiling that would serve only to unsettle young people. Smiling inanely at a class full of wild teenagers who are not paying a blind bit of attention to us will not be a particularly helpful behaviour-management strategy
As with all classroom communication strategies, it is about balance.
I also know that as teachers we have to convey authority and assertiveness, and that clearly will require a professional persona. Being professional and smiling, however, are not a dichotomy: you can convey both control and assertiveness and allow yourself to smile.
Credibility
What does a smile show? A smile makes us more human - and that surely is something that we want young people to see in us. An overly serious expression, in contrast, hints at an underlying insecurity, an earnestness and an inability to relax.
We also, surely, want young people to value being in a classroom with us, and to feel a connection that will support their learning in our subject.
A smile also gives us added credibility - we display that easy confidence and charisma that makes us look like we know what we are doing (even if the majority of the time we feel like we don’t!). It gives young people a sense of security, and helps them to feel like they can trust the person who is in front of them.
Smiling also helps to diffuse conflict - and it can be a brilliant way to throw a young person off guard. We appear more creative, more vibrant and more brimming with passion.
Wellbeing
Do a furtive check around you now, just to make sure you don’t appear like a complete lunatic. Now, try an unconstrained and effusive smile.
Don’t hold back - just hold it for as long as you can.
The first thing to notice is what happens to your brain. We manage to even trick ourselves when we smile. Darwin’s facial feedback response theory demonstrates that your brain recognises the movement of your facial muscles, which helps you to think positively about a situation.
For us in the classroom, context is important: smiling helps to suffuse us with a sense of calm as we manage the classroom space.
Having these positive endorphins in the classroom is crucial: if we frown our way through every teaching day, we are going to end up feeling pretty miserable at the end of it. If we create classrooms in which smiling - dare I say it, even laughter - is encouraged, then everyone will feel more positive.
In the midst of a stressful lesson or day, a smile can be hugely rejuvenating. It can be a habit that can help us to take more pleasure in our working day, and in the young people we are surrounded by.
Don’t smile until Christmas? Nonsense.
Jamie Thom is a lecturer in education at Edinburgh Napier University, as well as an author and host of Beyond Survival: The New Teacher Podcast. He tweets @teachgratitude1
