The Gossip Line

Everyone has had that person. The one that you just don’t know how to deal with and really want advice and suggestions for. The problem becomes when you seek “advice” from every single person who will listen to you vent, and you spend little to no time actually listening. I understand the need to vent, and I really do understand that it can be difficult to hear anything, from anyone, when you are hyped up and stressed. The difficulty can be understanding where the line is: that point that you must never cross, the point when venting and advice seeking becomes gossiping.

I will start by encouraging you to find one person, and only one, that you can trust. That will be the person you go to for advice and to vent your frustrations. This person can be your sounding board, and will be the one person that you can share freely with. Make sure you choose wisely, because this person needs to be able to truly give you sound advice and also be able to keep quiet about the things you share. Then, make sure you are willing to listen to what they have to say.

Next, make sure you keep names out of the conversation. Whether it is a colleague, a parent, or a student, their names do not need to be included in conversations of this nature. I realize that there are times when you need to discuss what is best for a student with other teachers, but that is not the time to vent frustration. Merely discuss problems and solutions. As a general rule, names are not needed to vent frustration. Even when seeking advice, you can ask for assistance for the situation, leaving names out of the discussion. Names make it personal and can lead to more personal attacks on the person’s character if you are not careful. Therefore, it is just best practice to not use names.

Also, make sure you drop your mirror. The vast majority of events are not personal attacks on you, so don’t let them become personal to you. I know this can be difficult, and honestly, even if the event was personal, taking it too much to heart only makes things worse. Keeping a certain amount of distance between yourself and the frustrations and problems you have with an individual will help you guard against falling into the gossip trap. “How does that work?” you may ask. In general, people are far more likely to gossip and say things they will later regret if they feel that something was a personal attack. This causes more pain and distress in the long run (Hendriksen, 2020). The best thing you can do is drop your mirror and find a way to look at the situation objectively.

Frustrating people are all around us. That is just one of those facts of life that we will have to deal with. It is so important to maintain a level of professionalism as we respond. It is like I tell my students, “You are not responsible for what someone else does, but you are very responsible for what you do.” Make the decision before anything happens that you will avoid gossip, and instead deal with frustrating people in a constructive and positive way. Remember that we may be the only positive example some of our students see. Let’s make sure we give them the best positive example we possibly can.

Reference:

Hendriksen, PHD, E. (2020). 6 Ways to Not Take Things Personally. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-be-yourself/202011/6-ways-not-take-things-personally.