E283
Why Reacting to Student Outbursts Destroys Your Classroom with Adam Wolfsdorf
From Better Leaders Better Schools · Hosted by Daniel Bauer
Episode summary
In this episode of Better Leaders Better Schools: Adam Wolfsdorf chairs the Humanities Department at Bay Ridge Preparatory in Brooklyn and teaches graduate students at NYU and Wesleyan, drawing on 26 years inside the classroom. He's the author of Teaching in the Riptide , where he names the moments educators get pulled under by something more powerful than their plan — and what to do when that happens. Outside the classroom, he spent 25 years performing professionally, including national tours of RENT and Grease .
Original publisher description
Adam Wolfsdorf chairs the Humanities Department at Bay Ridge Preparatory in Brooklyn and teaches graduate students at NYU and Wesleyan, drawing on 26 years inside the classroom. He's the author of Teaching in the Riptide , where he names the moments educators get pulled under by something more powerful than their plan — and what to do when that happens. Outside the classroom, he spent 25 years performing professionally, including national tours of RENT and Grease . A student kicks over a trash can, slams the door, and storms out mid-lesson. Seventeen other students sit frozen, waiting to see what the teacher does next. That moment — and the instinct to fight back in it — is what most classroom management training gets wrong. Dr. Adam Wolfsdorf has spent 26 years studying what happens when teachers refuse to match a student's energy, and why that refusal is the most powerful classroom management tool no one teaches. 🫶 What You'll Learn Why matching a student's outburst with your own energy guarantees you lose the room. How "constructive subversion" turns a disruptive moment into the most powerful lesson of the year. What separates teachers who do harm from teachers who do good —...