Dear colleague,
Few teacher moves are as classic and universal as the evil eye. That glare, meant to scare or intimidate or shame a misbehaving student back toward right behavior, is older than blackboards. (Heck, it's probably older than folks drawing stuff on cave walls.)
But just because it's classic doesn't mean it's a good play. We've got research that suggests when students feel like a teacher is trying to intimidate them, this diminishes Credibility. And it makes sense — Credibility comes from Care, Competence, and Passion. If you're glaring at me — or at one of my classmates — it's kind of signaling that you don't like us or that you don't have any better way to curb misbehavior. If I'm a sensitive student, I might be a bit less likely to approach you with a learning difficulty and a little less excited to come to your class.
(Now before I move on, I'm not guilt-tripping here — I don't even want to count how many evil eyes I gave before reading the research on this!)
The thing to do instead is the steady eye — just look at the student, calmly, even warmly, until the behavior resolves. If the behavior doesn't change, use another move for responding to misbehavior (see one of the latter sections in this free guide or Part 3 of the Classroom Management Course).
Really good teachers, in my view, never intend to intimidate students. Sometimes they *do* intimidate students (“Man, that teacher is so smart!” “Man, this teacher is a legend!”), but they never go out of their way to do so. They're warm and approachable — and at the same time, they're authoritative and run a well-managed room. (In other words, they've developed the warmly authoritative teacher presence skillset.)
In short, the evil eye is no longer on my “recommended moves” list because:
- It can have Credibility-harming side effects.
- The steady eye works just as well.
Teaching right beside you,
DSJR
P.S. For more on the behaviors that harm teacher Credibility, see the Tacky Ten on p. 39 of The Will to Learn or my next blog article.
P.P.S. Does your team want to explore things like the Tacky Ten and how teacher Credibility works? My Teacher Credibility Mini-Course gives you 10 strategies in under two hours of video. $99 for individuals, or group licenses for your whole faculty start at $499. Learn more here.
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