Behaviour management - the making or the breaking of a class.

Behaviour management - it makes or breaks a class environment and affects relationships and learning progress if you do not get it right.  Every class is different.  Every class has a different key that the teacher needs to find with the students to create the effective classroom environment to foster relationships and learning.

Over the years I have used a variety of systems. 

One school I was at I used the tried and true points system.  I had my class divided up into 4-6 groups (depending on numbers) to earn the points.  It had the advantage of ready made teams for fitness and sports as well.  I dished out points for having all their chairs down before the morning bell, being in class before I was after any bell, bringing completed homework back, winning students in maths games, being ready to listen, participation.... you name it, it had the potential to earn points.

Other schools had students in houses, so I used that to give out points.

Then there is the classic smiley face/sad face name on the board for positives and negatives.

I had CBGs (Caught Being Good cards) that I dished out to one class in order to keep a positive vibe going and so I didn't develop permanent frown lines.

Some classes I did not need to bribe students/give out points.  The evil eye and the phrase "I'm very disappointed..." was enough to do the damage.  In another class I had, students would hold my hand while I was on duty to pay back their time to me.

 



Over the years I have been to a number of behaviour management and class climate courses.  I believe this should be a must do for every teacher ever 2-3 years because we can get stale and 'forget' strategies if we haven't used them in a while.  I've particularly enjoyed the courses I went to by Bill Rogers (assertive discipline) and Lynley Russek (more classroom management techniques) and have used their techniques over a number of years. 

But there is always new tricks an established teacher can learn, and I am currently in the middle of a steep learning curve.

I took over an established class a few weeks ago.  There has been a lot of firsts for me in the last few weeks, and at times it has been overwhelming.  Firstly, I am teaching for the first time at a big town school - a huge adjustment after mostly teaching at small country schools with less than 120 students.  I'm working in a syndicate, which I am still working out how this works.  The planning is different.  The way staff meetings are run is different.  The daily timetable is different.  The methods of communication is different.  The behaviour management system is different.

This school follows the virtues model.  It is actually something that I am excited to learn about.  I was first introduced to the concept at an introductory workshop many years ago that my principal sent me to in order to find out about it and report back.  Zoom forward many years and I wanted to go through many of these virtues with my with a Year 5-8 class using a fabulous book by Peter Millet, The Anzac Biscuit Man.  So the actual virtues themselves are not unfamiliar, but the implementation of using them in a behaviour management system is.  It is like learning a whole new language.

And that is the part I have struggled with the most, the discourse of how to speak the language of the virtues.  For the senior leadership team (principal down to team leaders) this language flows freely from their tongue as they support me as a beginner to this way of speaking.  They use the virtues as the basis for restorative conversations between students and between individual teachers and students.

I have struggled with establishing the classroom environment with this group of students.  The majority of students are keen and ready to learn, but there is a group who struggle to manage their own behaviour and have not been responding to the positive measures I have been implementing.  And because I am still learning the discourse of the virtues, because these children are testing my boundaries for reactions, I am not connecting well with these students; I have not found the key.

So here I will describe what I am attempting to implement:

I have inherited a class metaphor.  This was new to me.  Each class at the school has their own metaphor which links in with targeted virtues, and there are some really creative ones to inspire the students to develop class unity.  My class metaphor was established two teachers ago, and I thought it was best to stick with it and not reinvent the wheel.

The metaphor is: We are shining our virtues to become award winning stars.  

It uses Hollywood/movies as the theme.  My class leaders are called Assistant Directors (I guess that makes me the director) and they sit on camp chairs (reminiscent of director's chairs).  Oscar (as in the highest award for films) is like the class mascot with the following virtues attributed like an acrostic poem:

Orderliness
Self-Discipline
Cleanliness
Accountability
Respect

I've divided the class into four groups, the Grammys, the Oscars, the Baftas and the Golden Globes.  I have Tuis (named after the NZ Music Awards, and instead of CBGs) to hand out as positive reinforcements.  At the end of the day the students hand these back in with their names written on the back.  Each Tui earns the student 10 points for their group and is another chance to have their name drawn out on Thursday afternoon for a treat (highlighters, mini pads, coloured pencils, pens and pencils...).  Groups can also earn points for actions like being the first ready with books and equipment, showing they are listening, great group work, having their chairs down.

All of the group points added together will go towards the class goal, currently set at 10,000 points, and then a higher total like 20,000 once we reach that to move forward.  The whole class gets a reward.  This time round it is likely to be a sport of their choice.  In the past I have also used a movie afternoon, trip to the pools, Easter eggs, board games afternoon....

That was the easy part to implement.  The majority of the students are receptive and are working hard to earn Tuis and points for their groups.

The school also has Virtue Cards.  Teachers (and class leaders I think) give these cards out as reinforcements and rewards for the virtues they see demonstrated by students or are promoting.  The student then takes it home for the parents to acknowledge and sign before bringing it back to school and posting in the Virtues Box at the office in the hopes of being drawn out at Assembly for a special prize.

It's taken me a couple of weeks to get my head around the Virtue Cards, but I have now made it part of the daily expectations to reinforce the behaviours I want to see in my class.

But what happens with the negative behaviours?  This is where I have really struggled because the feel of the school is for those positive restorative conversations, but how to you convey the gravity of the impacts of continued negative behaviours to the students who frequently fail to demonstrate their self-discipline and respect without stepping over the mark, in a way that is effective?  I was not happy, my students were not happy. 

I sat down with my team leader and the AP early last week and nutted out what this part would look like.  What was helpful was knowing that the team leader also had to put in the hard yards at the beginning of the year when she was new to the school.  I've since had the opportunity to observe in her classroom and her hard work at the beginning of the year has certainly paid off. 

I took the expectations back to the class and explained it.  Essentially it boils down to me explaining the virtues I expect to see as we learn during the day.  If I see a student who is disruptive or off task or loud I give them a verbal reminder of the virtue they need to exhibit, e.g. Bob, please demonstrate the virtue of peacefulness (translated: Bob, stop being so loud).  I check back to see that Bob is now quietly working.  If Bob is not quietly working, I write Bob's name on the board along with the virtue they need to practice.  If Bob continues to not use his virtues, he owes the teacher, me, time in his next break.  During this time I get Bob to write out the Kawa of the school as many times as his name ended up beside a virtue on the board.  For repeated behaviour through the day, Bob can be referred to the Virtues Help Room where he has the chance to discuss his behaviour and how he can make better choices and a restorative conversation and/or to the team leader or AP for a restorative conversation, and this could result in home being contacted. 

So I began doing this.  But I had students who continually demonstrated that they were unable to manage their own behaviour.  It was becoming somewhat overwhelming and on Monday I was so disturbed by my inability to do any teaching and the frustration of the other students I removed a repeat offender from the class to the team leader's room - where another AP was releasing her for the block!  Mortifying!

But he was just as supportive as the other AP, modelling restorative conversations, some advice on how to utilise the Virtues Cards and discussing how the SLT (principal included) can support me as the teacher and these students to achieve a sustainable outcome.  This is still a work in progress, but the next day was a better day.  The students know the consequences and I am no longer getting howls of despair when I follow through.

In writing this post, I came across this meme below, which pretty much sums up the learning curve I am going through in learning the language of the virtues.

Learning the language of the virtues and establishing the climate of my class with me as the teacher is still a work in progress.  After watching the team leader with her class I was in awe.  But I have had classes like that too, and I know I'm going to have to work hard to get this current class to the standard I've had previously in behaviour and self-management.

So bring it on and let the learning continue.... and may I always remember these wise words below:

Dr Adam Lefstein - Keynote 2 - ULearn14 - Teacher professional discourse and learning: what we talk about when we talk about our practice

The second key of ULearn14 note was presented by Dr Adam Lefstein from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.  This is his bio from the ULearn site:

Adam Lefstein is Senior Lecturer in Education at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, where he conducts research and teaches about pedagogy, classroom interaction, teacher learning and educational change. He’s particularly interested in the intersection between research and professional practice, and how to conduct research that is meaningful, rigorous and helpful for educators.

His recently published book, Better than Best Practice: Developing Teaching and Learning through Dialogue (with Julia Snell, published by Routledge), investigates the possibilities, challenges and dilemmas of dialogic teaching and learning, and offers practical tools for using discussion of video-recordings of classroom practice to hone teacher professional judgment.
Previously, Lefstein worked as a teacher and facilitator of teacher learning at the Branco Weiss Institute in Jerusalem, where he also directed the Community of Thinking programme.

You can find out more about Dr Lefstein's book at http://dialogicpedagogy.com/ and follow him on Twitter at @ALefstein as of today.  Click here for the collaborative document from the Keynote.

Below is the Storify of the tweets I and others tweeted during Dr Lefstein's Keynote presentation. 

Sadly Storify has deleted itself from the Social Media landscape and none of my Storifies exist anymore.  😭😭😭😭

A day later (and then several weeks later) I have had a chance to reflect on what we heard from Dr Lefstein yesterday.  Teachers tend to talk a lot.  We talk all day to students, we talk to the parents who we encounter in our day and we talk to our colleagues in meetings, in passing, at lunchtime.  But how often are our conversations with our colleagues of a quality that the participants come away with something they know will improve their practice?

In 2006 I was lucky enough to do the Middle Leadership Course at the Leadership Centre at the University of Waikato.  Murray Fletcher was the facilitator of the course and one of the centre points was active listening.  This keynote gave me pause to go back and reflect on what I learnt in this course and to synthesise what I know already with what I heard yesterday.

I was particularly taken by the comparison of teacher professional discourse being compared with a doctor's medical round.  When doctors do their rounds they have each other to discuss the patient's condition with.  They may consult with the nurses who have a more direct care of the patient.  They toss ideas around and come up with a diagnosis and a treatment plan. 

Teachers do do this as well, but not usually as they teach.  It usually happens in the staff room at lunch time or in a meeting to create and IEP.  Because the nature of teaching is generally one teacher in a single cell room with many children, there generally is no other adult for the teacher to confer and work with to solve those problems or take a different tack with teaching the moment that it happens.  Our conversations tend to be reactionary, after the fact, rather than in the moment.

In regards to Rule 1: Don't talk about pedagogical problems, I agree that teachers as a rule are not used to people watching them regularly, to have people come into their classrooms and talk the practice of teaching as the teacher is teaching.  However, I believe that most teachers are pretty good at talking pedagogy, particularly if something is not right - however this doesn't seem to happen in the class... it's always and after thing and mostly focused on solving an issue rather than analysing and celebrating what works and then exploring the possibility of changing that up.  Often our pedagogical conversations are based on putting out a fire rather than preventing the fire.

Teaching is an aspirational vocation.  We all have great plans at being the best teacher we can be, having the most amazing programmes, engaging children in meaningful and inspiring learning.  But we soon realise that we can't juggle all the balls at the same time, if one thing is going well it may be to the expense of another, and there is always a bit more that we can do as teachers.

Which brings me to Rule 2: Don't mind the gap between teaching aspirations and classroom realities.  There will always be the gap between what we what to provide and achieve with our learners compared to what really happens, but even though we may never consistently achieve to meet the standards we (or others) set ourselves as teachers, we should never give up or lessen our expectations.  We need to continue to challenge ourselves and exceed our previous best to keep the passion alive and extend ourselves.  We need to be clear what our leaders expect of us and our leaders need to know what we expect of ourselves as well, which means discussing and planning your aspirations with your team or senior management.

Rule 3: Dichotomize is about the opposing forces in our classroom, in our teaching, in our own perceptions and realities which are facing off each day as we teach.  This has always happened, and always will.  But good discussion with a trusted colleague will help you to identify those which are really hurting your teaching and holding back students from achieving and will enable you to come away with a bag of tricks to try to change the situation.

Rule 4: Trust your own unique experience - this is important that our experiences shape us as teachers, but we also need to be open to other experiences by our colleagues, because they may spark and idea or a system we can make our own for the betterment of our own teaching and the learning of the students.

Rule 5: No precise professional language is where Dr Lefstein and I have a fundamental difference of opinion.  I find that teaching is littered with teaching language and phrases that people who are not teachers do not understand.  I often find myself translating acronyms like RTLB, explaining what synthesising in reading is, or a number of other things as parents and friends look at me with glazed eyes.  We have plenty of technical teacher talk.

Rule 6: Hyper-criticise Dr Lefstein showed part of a video of Sir Tony Robinson on a show called The Teaching Challenge and this is the blurb for the video:
Sir Tony Robinson, presenter of Time Team and Blackadder, hated school, but has returned to take on a history class at Shireland Language College in Smethwick, Birmingham.
His challenge is to teach a lesson on the worst jobs in history relating to the evolution of public health and hygiene since 1300. He faces not only the pupils, but also the school's formidable head of history, Colin Vigar, who offers a robust critique of Tony's performance. (2005)
And Tony was rigorously critiqued by Colin.  But is a rigorous critique helpful to a teacher receiving feedback?  Personally I don't think so, and neither did the room, nor Dr Lefstein's research.  Feedback needs to be structured, specific and constructive.

Rule 7  - seems to have disappeared during the keynote so we moved on to the next rule.

Rule 8: Focus on what's missing is when the discussion focuses on what did not happen rather than on what did happen.  That can be very down heartening to the teacher who is being observed when they are only told what they haven't done and should have done instead rather than building on what was achieved.

So what did I come away with from this keynote?

• Professionally discussing our teaching practice is important to helping me be a better teacher.
• The conversation needs to focus on what actually is happening.
• We shouldn't ignore our own experiences, but should be open to the experiences of others too.
• Feedback needs to be structures, specific and constructive - the aim is to build up the teacher to go forward, not tear the teacher down.
• It would be beneficial to have discussions with another professional as event occur, although in teaching this tends to be hard as we are a single teacher in a single room with a class most of the time.
• We should talk about the challenges we face and not be staunch.