Bring your Behaviour Management skills out of the elbow patch era...
Once upon a time, in a not so distant school, the cane was the number one strategy used by educators to punish and stamp out poor behaviour in class.
Teachers believed that the cane literally beat out the very thought of wrong-doing from the child leaving a model citizen and obedient young adult in it's wake.
Of course we now know that the cane did nothing of the sort. It may have stopped poor behaviour in it's tracks but this was through fear of consequence rather than freedom of choice. Poor behaviour was punished rather than corrected and in many cases this bred contempt rather than positive change.
But thankfully there are now decades of experience, research and practice evidencing that preventative approaches to classroom and behaviour management can mitigate the need to ever chastise later on.
But there's no big secret to it all, there's no one trick that crushes challenging behaviour the moment it starts to arise... It takes patience and practice.
Below are a number of foundation techniques and strategies used throughout education, organisations and even parenting that may give you food for thought and get you started. Consistently integrating these in to your practice may affect the change you've been seeking:
Keep it 'A.B.C' - Accuracy - Brevity - Clarity: Keeping discussions with young people to the point will make them infinitely more effective - Especially when you're acknowledging a poor behaviour. Accuracy - Ensure what you're saying is right! We have all had Young People exclaim 'It wasn't me sir!' with an increasingly frustrated tone for us to only find out later, once it's too late, that they were spot on. False accusations can be fatal for relationships. Brevity - Avoid debates, conflict and procrastination - it's hard work for you and confusing for the Young Person. Explain what you expect them to do and leave them to it. The space this creates is often all that was needed to de-escalate the situation anyway. Clarity - Avoid jargon, posh words and policy, keep things plain and simple. At best you'll end up being embarrassed and/or corrected by a savvy student - at worst your communication will be completely lost on them breeding further challenging behaviour.
Visibility and Consistency: Visibility - As both a member of staff and an educator your presence is felt both in and, arguably more importantly, out of the classroom. Show students that you embody the behaviour you expect of them at all times, even when strolling to the canteen. Being 'omni-present' in the corridors, eating and social areas and still demanding the same high expectations of young people will make enforcing those standards in the classroom ten times easier. Staffroom hibernation is for the weak. Consistency - Much like visibility consistency is about continuity of action. Young People will test our boundaries (regularly) but this is not designed to push us away. When Young People push our buttons it's to check we can contain them, their chaos and their emotions. Boundaries should be made of a thick rubber (for want of a better analogy). They should be flexible enough to accommodate the individual but tough enough to contain them and not be broken. Until a Young Person believes we can deal and cope with their issues they will never open up and move forwards.
Know yourself - don't bite: When exiting a conversation or sanction with a Young Person (remember A.B.C.) they may throw in additional challenges to keep your attention or distract you from the original issue. These 'secondary behaviours' as they are known - such as the insults as they walk out, the "whatever" response, the door slamming or shouting in the corridor - are all add-ons to the original incident. By biting and challenging these secondary behaviours you dilute the sanction and loose focus of the goal. If (Insert name here) has left the room the goal is achieved - the trail of destruction can be dealt with later! Fighting instinct to stand up to poor behaviour there and then keeps you in control and makes follow up work far more effective. By regulating your emotions and response you exude confidence. This will be picked up by the rest of your audience/class and will show (Insert name here) that you can contain their behaviour.
Use language to affect change: Lessons can sometimes feel like an uphill battle, an endless stream of requests to do this, stop that, let go of her hair, put the bunsen burner down etc. We all know that these requests can become ineffective eventually. Once a Young Person has heard "No" a thousand times it means virtually nothing. Changing the way we make requests from the offset can have a dramatic effect on the Young Person's response. Thanking a Young Person for completing an action or stopping a behaviour before they have done it may seem counter-intuitive but it often provokes an immediate response with little to no objection. "Thank you everyone for taking your seats" is more effective than "Sit down" and "Thank you for getting this done for me" will work better than "Stop doing that and start doing this". It assumes the young Person will complete the task successfully and you have complete trust they will accomplish it.
The four strategies above represent the tip of the iceberg when it comes to working with challenging behaviour. Join me in my next blog post when I'll be exploring more methods to keep your sanity whilst educating our more challenging individuals.
