What Are You Looking For? (Things That Have Worked For Me #3)

This post is part of a series of things I've picked up over the last 9 years that have turned out to be incredibly helpful. Obviously their mileage will vary depending on your context and I don't expect them to work for everyone, so feel free to either take these on board or put them in your brain-bin - I won't mind either way.

3. Look for the Positives rather than the Negatives

This one sounds so simple on the surface but in practice it can be quite difficult to maintain. Any cursory look at a behaviour monitoring database held by a school will include entries that cover various behavioural events. These can be positive or negative, including things like a student completing a particular lengthy and high quality piece of classwork (positive) to a student becoming argumentative with the teacher (negative). In a lot of cases there will be an imbalance between these events, with a higher quantity of negative events being listed because these are the sort of things we've been trained to 'jump onto' as quickly as possible.

But when we think about it (or even look more closely at the data) there is often a pattern that reveals that the negative events are restricted to a very comparatively-small percentage of the student population. A look at the complete roll of students in any class will make it clear that the vast majority of students are doing the 'right' thing or, at least, not doing the 'wrong' thing (which in most eyes is considered the 'right' thing by default).

Child psychologists (such as Doctor Roberto Parada) will be among the first to tell you that recognising desired behaviour in children has a much bigger impact than acknowledging the kinds of behaviour we don't want. In a classroom, this can be admittedly difficult, but the long term effect of pushing further in this direction cannot be be underestimated and undervalued.

Here's a scenario called 'Picking Your Battles' that makes the thinking a little more explicit:

1. A student with a history of defiance comes into the classroom late while wearing a hat or listening to headphones. He sits down and begins working on the class activity like everyone else in the class, perhaps doing some work for the first time in weeks.
2. The teacher pulls the student up on breaking the school rule about wearing hats, listening to headphones, or coming to class late.
3. The student responds defensively, or aggressively, or both.
4. The student stops working on the class activity.
5. The student continues to break the original rule AND/OR gets detention for arguing. 
6. Any opportunity to build a positive relationship with the student during this lesson is now gone, PLUS no work has been completed.

If the student had gone unchallenged then we would've had a different scenario play out. The undesired behaviours, such as coming late or listening to headphones, could be dealt with afterwards when the student doesn't have an audience.

U.S. Educator Annette Breaux makes a few points that relate to the above scenario:

• If a student is angry, leave them alone and give them space.
• Weigh up the reality of what you're asking them to do - are they going to react favourably?
• If there is a choice of you having them working while breaking a minor rule, or not working at all, then what is more important in the long run? 
• Is it more likely that the student will listen to your instructions about following rules if you show them first that you care foremost about them getting the work done rather than having them accept your authority? 
• Is challenging a disruptive student going to ease the issue?
• Is their education the most important aspect of their being at school? How can we make this clear to them?

I'll add to the above that our syllabus doesn't include behaviour management. I'm not saying that behaviour management isn't a part of our job (that would be insane) but I'm saying getting students to meet syllabus outcomes is the first priority. If you can manage to get students to meet syllabus outcomes then the chances are that they won't have time to be able to break rules too much. Besides, what is a parent going to query more - the teacher disciplining their student or the teacher educating them in line with the syllabus requirements? If we're successfully teaching a student our subject then I'm arguing that that's the better goal.

I know it's not ideal but it's preferable... we don't live in an ideal world and there's a higher chance of teacher burnout when we strive to create an ideal world in our classroom. As Breaux suggests above, a student (and their parent) are more likely to listen and respond reasonably to our management of undesired behaviours if we're actively demonstrating that the student's education comes first (more on that in the next blog) or if we're waiting until after class to discuss the issue (proving that it isn't about humiliating them in front of their peers).

There's another really clever chap called Adam Lefstein who talks a lot about 'face-work', which is the idea of teachers becoming preoccupied with looking a certain way in front of their colleagues. This is nominally because we're worried about having our behaviour management judged. The more we can break the appearance of judging our colleagues, keeping an open door to our classrooms, and being honest about the challenges we face, the more we can start changing the conversation to being about the things that students are doing right in the classroom. Yeah, okay, there's four kids chatting and not focused on their work, but look at the twenty-odd other students who have done everything you asked! Is the visiting teacher seeing that part of the lesson?

The challenge here is to walk into a 'challenging' class you have this week and decide to only acknowledge the 'good' things happening, even with the students who are still exhibiting undesired behaviours. This could be awarding points in a system of some kind, chucking out some lollies, giving award certificates, promising a positive phone call home to their parent... but whatever you do, unless something completely un-ignorable happens, try to avoid even seeing the 'bad' stuff. We've all had enough lessons like that. We've had plenty of lesson where we only saw the things that went wrong, so what's the harm in trying the opposite just once?

Don't approach this as a sentimental or emotional exercise; try to drop any preconceived ideas you already have from your time teaching these same students in the past. Approach the lesson as scientifically as possible, identifying and rewarding desired behaviours only, and watch to see if student completion of work improves.  

Settling the Class (Things That Have Worked for Me #2)

This post is part of a series of things I've picked up over the last 9 years that have turned out to be incredibly helpful. Obviously their mileage will vary depending on your context and I don't expect them to work for everyone, so feel free to either take these on board or put them in your brain-bin - I won't mind either way.

2. Don't Wait for the Class to Settle

If you're nearly 7 foot tall, and look like Conan the Barbarian, then you'll probably have no problem quelling the dissent of the class with a booming voice and a threatening neck-vein the size of a rope. For the rest of us, however, relying on physical intimidation or authoritarianism isn't necessarily going to work. I spend a lot of time telling student-teachers they should play to their strengths and that, if their strength isn't in presenting a strong and authoritative presence, they may need to rely on other strategies to shape a learning environment based on engagement. 

The time spent waiting for a mixed-ability class to become quiet is almost never time well spent. There are likely somewhere between 20 and 30 individual students (all with their own drama going on) and waiting for every single of one of them to simultaneously fall silent and pay attention can be an immense challenge. The probability of different interactions between this many people is so high that you can't predict how settled the class will be each time you see them (think about it - if you have 25 students then how is each individual potentially going to react to any combination of their 24 peers on a particular day? I'm not a Maths teacher but I'm sure the figure for the amount of student-combinations is quite high). 

I've most often fallen into the trap of waiting for the class to be quiet usually just before I'm about to play a film clip of some sort. Waiting for the students to be quiet before I play the clip (while forcing myself not to yell at them in order to make it happen) is almost always futile. This can be the same for a range of other activities, including whole class instruction. 

What surprisingly sometimes works instead is just moving straight into the clip or activity while the students are still unsettled. The activity becomes the thing that settles the students. If I have a task that requires instruction then I'll put the instructions up on the board or hand out the sheets... this will get those who understand (and are willing to work independently) to engage with the work. Then, while this half of the class is getting underway, I'll start moving around and instructing the other students one-on-one. This works because:

• The amount time spent moving around and doing one on one instruction tends to be equal to the amount of time it would get me to settle the whole class at once.
• Even if I do manage to settle the entire class and they become quiet, this doesn't mean that they are all attentive or capable of understanding the instructions. Just because a class is quiet and compliant it doesn't mean that they're listening. Once the activity gets underway, speaking one-on-one guarantees a higher level of engagement across the class as it allows for differentiated instruction. There are students who struggle to follow the more traditional lecturing-style of whole class instruction and moving around to them once their peers have started working gives them an opportunity to listen and interact with you.
• Even if I do decide to try and settle the whole class at once and it somehow takes less time then just putting the activity in front of them, I can usually be fairly certain that my personal stress level will be higher as a result. I want to be in this for the long haul, so it's better overall if I don't break myself trying to get over 20 students to simultaneously be quiet. If I can let go of the idea that my authority needs to be recognised (and let's be honest here, no syllabus includes 'recognition of teacher authority' as an outcome) then I find myself a lot less stressed by the settling section of a routine lesson. If being authoritative works for you then that's fine, but for myself it's not one of my strengths so I've had to develop and adopt the other aforementioned strategies to save my sanity.

Non-verbal cues are also good. This can include the tried-and-true methods of:

• Holding my hand up and waiting for silence. Students should reply by putting their own hands up so other students can see that I want some quiet. Yelling for silence has always felt counterproductive and contradictory to me so I've found modelling silence in this way a bit more logical. 
• The above can be accompanied by quietly counting from 1 to whatever until the class settles. If I have to, I'll resume from whichever number I got to at any point in the lesson and this becomes the amount of time some individuals from the class might owe me.
• Proximity. Standing near the most disruptive students usually has a dampening effect on their off-topic conversations. 
• Walking around and pointing to clear, simple instructions that have been written on the board can be effective too. Many students are disruptive or disengaged simply because they don't know what to do and they aren't able to understand verbal instructions. 
• Write personalised instructions on a note and quietly place it in front of the student. This works especially well for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 
• This isn't exactly non-verbal but choice theory can be really effective with students who might be categorised as naturally oppositional. Quietly give them two choices (both choices need to be positive ones, EG. You can do this work, or this work) and then walk away and let them decide without you hovering over them or waiting for a response. The act of waiting for a response can often exacerbate the opposition we're trying to circumvent. 

One more caveat before I finish up. I'm aware that behaviour management is very subjective and can be complex in light of school policies, and I'm also aware that nothing above is particularly revolutionary. My recent experiences teaching English Method to pre-service teachers has had me thinking a lot about articulating my processes and, as a result, I've been thinking of these blogs as living documents to help me sort and solidify pedagogy that I've found helpful. 

Hopefully there's something here that might prove useful to you too. 

Classroom Schematics (Things That Have Worked for Me #1)

Followers of this blog may have noticed that I've slowed down a little in the last few months in terms of sharing resources.

There are a few reasons for this, chief among them is the fact that recent times have been awfully hard for myself and my wife. I look at this blog sometimes and, much like George Harrison and his guitar, my life goes on while it gently weeps. Another reason for the absence is a much more positive one though, being that I've been working on a range of writing projects in various stages of germination. This includes a textbook on Under Milk Wood for Into English, some writing on Aboriginal history, and a few other projects that should hopefully cement themselves in the near future. 

As of last week I just finished supervising my tenth student-teacher. It's a nice round milestone and one that has given me pause for thought. I always find supervision of student-teachers to be a very fulfilling practice as it provides a great open dialogue around pedagogy, and it re-positions my daily focus onto the part of my job that matters most: the actual teaching. The idea of articulating the teaching process becomes more concrete and it always forces me to reconsider the reasons why I do particular things, and observing someone else as they teach across a block of 5-6 weeks has consistently proven to be a valuable learning experience. 

Anyway, thinking about my teaching habits led to the question: what are the main things that I do that have worked well for me?

This post is the first in a short series of five things I've picked up over the last 9 years that have turned out to be incredibly helpful. Obviously their mileage will vary depending on your context and I don't expect them to work for everyone, so feel free to either take these on board or put them in your brain-bin - I won't mind either way.

1. Classroom Schematics

When I started teaching I was working as a day-to-day casual. This meant that I was often teaching outside of my subject area and was a complete unknown to the students. When students don't know who you are, they often jump to the conclusion that you don't know who they are either - and when you're a new teacher or working casually this can very likely be true. 

And if you don't have their names then it's all over. 

They'll pretend to be the wrong student, run away from you when you try to hold them back after class, or completely disengage on the basis that you can't identify who they are without their help. The one chance you have to get their name is when you mark the roll, because most students realise that they'll be marked as truanting if they don't answer truthfully at this point. So you have to use this chance wisely.

Here's what I do. I can't remember who I picked this up from but it's been such a useful thing to do, and I still do it every time I start with a new class. 

1. Draw a map of the room. 
2. As you mark the roll, ask each student to put their hand up so you can see them. Don't move onto the next student until you have sighted each one.
3. Write the names of each student onto your map/schematic of the room.

It doesn't matter how long this takes it's always worth doing. Even if the students are noisy or wandering around or if it takes a full 10 minutes, spending the time doing this will be the best thing you can do with a complete group of strangers because - once you have their names - you have the basics of behaviour management in your hands. Anything can be followed up if you know exactly who each student is.

A positive impact from this is that it also allows you to address each student by their name, which can help build valuable rapport. In my teaching context, Western Sydney, students tend to become significantly less stand-offish once you address them by their name. You're letting them know that you see them.