You will probably wonder what an armchair (even if it's a cozy one!) has to do with dealing with wrong behaviour choices of your kids in class. A lot! But before we get there, let's talk a little about 3 things that you need to pay attention to before any consequence can be given.
I think behaviour issues are the number one question I get asked all the time by my trainees.
I'm by no means a behaviour expert, there are tons of other people out there just focusing on this.
Plus this topic is so vast that I usually hold workshops that last several days to talk in detail about everything. So this really is just an attempt to talk about the most common things related to behaviour management that I have learned during my past 20 years in the industry ...
1. Rules, procedures and routines ... without them, you are dead!
When I was a beginner teacher I thought that I'm an English teacher, and all I have to do is to go into the classroom, teach some English and play games and just let the kids have fun, the rest will come alone. - Nope, actually nopedy nope ...
Remember you have small human beings in front of you who probably are completely new to the school setting and have no idea how to behave there. At home they are allowed to run and shout for joy and go crazy, whereas that's not acceptable in a classroom. They have to be taught how to do this.
You also have to keep in mind that for probably quite a few kids, they haven't been with a bigger amount of other kids before and hence are intimidated by this as well.
Once a girl came to me and told me she was scared of the other kids even though they didn't do anything (it was a pretty quiet class actually and I was surprised to hear her say that).
The more I talked to her the more I found out that she was scared of the other kids simply because they were new to her and she wasn't able to predict what they may do.
So rules and routines, give a feeling of security and reassurance to kids.
They also help to create smoother transitions between activities and therefore give fewer opportunities for disruptions to occur (Burden 2003, Docking 2002)
Take your time especially at the beginning of the year to implement the rules, procedures and routines. I often have teachers tell me that they don't have time for this, they are there to teach English. Whereas actually you DON'T have the time to NOT teach them this first, because you will lose so much time during the entire school year reacting to behaviours as opposed to actually teaching!
Teaching those three things at the beginning (and constantly reminding them throughout all the year!!) is an example of proactive vs reactive classroom management.
Little tip on the side:
- Fewer rules, more routines and procedures!
2. One size absolutely does not fit all.
Rules have consequences. No rule will help you if you don't follow up with consequences if they are not followed. The kids will learn quickly that you don't follow up, won't take you seriously and therefore do whatever they want. And it's hard (not impossible, but hard!) to make them change their minds about you later on.
Most schools use one method for the entire class, such as clip charts (there are quite a few studies out there now that show that those are actually not a good idea to use, but that's another story).
Our school used one of those for years before we changed the approach. "Bad students" got red points, "good students" got pink points and the "neutral" ones stayed on green.
The problem with this was that some kids royally didn't care about having red points! So even if you gave out the consequence in that sense, it didn't do anything. Some kids actually started laughing ...
Some kids didn't care to be sent to the principals office, some didn't care if you told them you will call their parents, you see? So apparently there was something going very wrong!
Everything started to shift when I let go of such systems but rather tried to find out what makes each of my kids "tick". Some kids needed positive reinforcement, some kids needed reminders, some kids were overwhelmed, some kids were tired, someone's dog died ... there are all those different reasons as to why a child starts to act up. And most often, when you learn the story behind their behavior, you don't want to punish them in any way anymore but rather help them to deal with the situation. Sometimes a child just needs a hug and we give them a red point as a punishment because he didn't know yet how to communicate his need.
Yes, it will take a while, but your job is to find out the reason for the behaviour or else it will never stop. If you have an attention seeker (I prefer to say that they have the need to connect, rather than seeking attention as it has such a negative connotation), they will be happy to receive a red point or other consequence, because "bad attention is better than none!"
So here is what you should do to find out what may trigger certain behaviours in a child (and if the child doesn't want to tell you directly). Carry a paper with you at all times. Whenever you see a child doing something you don't want them to do you write down (immediately, not later, because you will forget about tiny details later) what the behavior was and what happened right before this behavior occurred. When you do this consistently, after a few days you should be able to see a pattern. With this new information you will be a lot more equipped to help your student!
In the next post I'll talk more about consequences, so keep your eyes peeled!
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