This article is from a book, "Children in Crisis" which highlights various issues of adolescence, which affect their learning at school, and one of such issues is "anger." The evidence of anger has been around for as long as I have been in teaching profession, but I am noticing it more now. Newspapers and news magazines are filled with reports of violence. It is a known fact that anger is at the root of many societal problems physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.
             What I am most concerned about the anger I find in schools. Anger is not usually the problem but the behaviors that result from the anger that makes our lives difficult. For sometime, I have been noticing anger expressed in the playground and in the office discipline binder that contains reports of children who have been sent for fighting. I also hear it in teacher's voices as I walk by some classrooms in the school. So, I thought to reflect on "anger" and "anger-based behaviors" which have a tremendous effect on teaching and learning.
             Last year I worked as an Educational Assistant in a public school. I remember an incidence of a grade eight student who wrote in a journal that she had become really angry because no one at home appreciated how much effort she had given to writing her novel-she had ripped the ten type written ages into bits! This same student was being treated for ulcers; her rage had turned inward. June Callwood puts it: "One loses temper for matters of domination, interference, or not getting enough approval, enough support or affection." Lack of approval from parents and a blow to the sense of self must have triggered anger in this girl to tear up her own painstakingly typed pages.
             We don't seem to understand or accept anger-either our own or that of our students. We punish children for showing their anger, which d...