My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (James 1:19-20)

Last November, I was conducting my data gathering. One of my students and I had an incident during a reading lesson. He was making too much jokes. To me, he seemed to be not taking the lesson seriously. So, when he started joking for the nth time on that day, I became stern. This meant raising my voice a little higher than usual and giving him my most serious face. He freaked out a bit because he did not like me being mad. He was a former student too and he saw me strict and mad many times. I did not have a choice and impose my authority over him. He declined and apologized. After the lesson, we talked over it. I also apologized for raising my voice and being stern but I also explained that I would not be like that if I did not see something was going wrong. He explained that he really likes making jokes but he went overboard.

After the session, I felt emotionally unhealthy. I felt that something was wrong with my heart too. When I came home and watched the video of our session, I realized a very important lesson. If I just ignored what he did, our lesson would go smoother and we would have ended on time. I thank God that the discussion and his understanding of the story was not affected by it. But I could have let that slip until the end of the lesson. At least, we could have addressed the issue more appropriately.

As much as I wanted to teach the student a lesson on when or how to make jokes, I was also being guided by God on how to respond in gentleness, patience, and understanding. Being strict helps in disciplining students and correcting their misbehaviors. But having a follow-up for the reason why they have to undergo a disciplinary action is healthy.