Body language is a large part of how humans communicate their wants, needs, and desires with each other.  Body language can invite us into a conversation or isolate us from groups. It is a silent barometer of socialization and can affect an emotional state of being – vacillating from the positive to the negative.  In the end, the interpretation of body language is up to the individual perceiving, the feedback receiver, and a host of individual differences which drive how the signal is decoded. A sigh from the teacher may be humorous to one student, anger-inducing to another, and sorrowful to yet another.  This student perception of a teacher’s silent language can impact student performance and self-esteem.

In a 2009 book chapter by Eccles and Roeser, they discuss schools and academic motivation through various levels. The one thing all of the levels have in common is teacher influence. Suffice to say; teachers have a great deal of influence in and on the lives of their students. Although the authors do not explicitly discuss body language, gestures, and non-verbal cues, they make huge statements regarding teacher influence in the classroom.  How a student perceives a teacher feels about him/her can have a remarkable impact in the classroom.

The point? If teachers have such a strong influence over the outcomes of their students in the classroom through presumably straightforward indications of praise or condemnation, imagine what happens in the complex, mixed-message, broken feedback loop involved in the silent language of the body.  This is something all people need to be mindful of, especially teachers.

Being mindful of how one handles the unexpected is also essential. I think everyone handles the unexpected differently but staying calm, steady, and even-toned is a must. Emotional reactivity encourages, and sometimes, creates more emotional reactivity. For example, if a disruptive student interrupts for the third time in five minutes, a teacher may respond in an angry tone, make a disapproving facial expression, or send other non-verbal signals of annoyance, creating a feeding emotional cycle where the student ‘returns’ those emotion(s) back to the teacher, the teacher to the student, and before anyone realizes, there are heightened feelings and chaos.  In contrast, there may be a child who fails to recognize and decode the teacher’s body language when a signal is meant to be sent; this is not typical and can be unexpected. When a student fails to read the nuances of the silent language they may not realize that the teacher is not approving of their actions and they will continue to engage unless explicitly told verbally to stop. Lastly, remember to focus on the problem, not the person, because disruptive behavior and unexpected student issues usually occur from places which are emotionally or cognitively outside of their control.

In the end, body language is always working; it speaks more often and can be interpreted in variation more than verbal language, and we need to be cognizant of the messages we send. I am an expressive person and perfecting a veil for my own silent language will be a skill to perfect.