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Discussion:
Student Frustrations

What advice can you offer concerning fostering better social interactions between students in the classroom? With students ranging in age from 18 to 60 in some of our programs, we occasionally run into very volatile confrontations between class members who are fed up with the "high school mentality" of fellow students, the issue of classroom cliques, and the "he/she was talking about me" complaints. One situation escalated when three women ages 23 to 28 (all mothers!!) began screaming at each each other, the police were called, and the Director of Education threatened to withdraw all three students if they continued to disrupt the education environment. While this eliminated much of the overt hostile behavior, these students continued trying to ensnare others in the controversy whenever the instructor left the classroom. While the obvious solution in this situation was to follow through with the DOE's threat, we need to arm our instructors with strategies to prevent or at least minimize social discontent and interpersonal frustrations/friction among our students.

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