Fiduciary: an adjective ‘involving trust, especially with regards to the relationship between a trustee and a beneficiary’.
In our model of a complete learning environment (see below) all the components are important but the one that holds everything together is relationships. As research shows
this view is held by all serious educators:
Teachers who support a student’s autonomy tend to facilitate greater motivation, curiosity and desire for challenge.
Teachers higher in ‘warmth’ tend to develop greater confidence in students
Students who believe their teacher is a caring one tend to learn more
Positive relationships enhance social, cognitive and language development
Students feelings’ of acceptance by teachers are associated with emotional, cognitive and behavioural engagement in class
In fact, the greatest amount of variance in student achievement is accounted for by the quality of the teacher and student relationship.
Although we may all agree on the importance I would find it hard to recall any time in my professional training where reference to relationships went any deeper than to concede it’s importance. There is an assumption we all know what constitutes a good relationship.
If pressed, I expect we would all describe a relationship in terms of an association, a connection, bond or interaction between your ‘self’ and others. Further, healthy mature relationships accept a level of equity, there is a balance of related power. There is respect for each-others’ independence but a willingness for each to compromise within certain boundaries.
The significance of any relationship depends on how close the participants are to each other. The second illustration presents the expanding levels of importance to the person represented as the ‘self’. This is the critical phase in the development of healthy relationships. Your ‘self’ is established in early childhood, it is the beliefs we have about our person that is based on the remembered experiences. It goes without saying those children who are raised in dysfunctional, abusive or neglectful families will have a damaged sense of ‘self’ which will influence their ability to establish healthy relationships in the future. To have a healthy sense of ‘self’ that you can take to any relationship you must have an honest sense about your beliefs and emotions.
The next level, which is with an intimate other is the place this early childhood damage is inflicted. Tragically it is the intimate relationship that is the most powerful, which in a healthy bond is rewarding but for the destructive one the power is damaging and that injury becomes hard-wired into the child’s personality. To have a healthy relationship you must treat the other with honesty and reveal your emotions, for damaged kids this is extremely challenging and, if in that toxic environment outright dangerous.
The next level is between the ‘self’ and peers or acquaintances. This developmental stage takes place when the child begins to expand their interactions with others, this may be at pre-school or with families. This is a level away from the need to completely share your inner secrets, this is where the value of boundaries begins to offer protection. Friends and acquaintances should not have that intimacy but it a place where you share opinions, ideas and decisions you might make. This level of interaction is difficult for damaged kids, they have no idea of how much to reveal or in fact to reveal anything becoming extremely secretive.
The final level of relationships is with strangers, those people who we may know at a superficial level or we meet at a function. The discussions are often referred to as ‘small talk’ and that just about sums the level of personal disclosure you should offer. You can probably remember some interactions when a stranger tells you their life story with all the intimate details. That is a sign that they have not developed the boundaries that are so important to relationships.
So, what’s with fiduciary relationships? The relationships I have described above are what I would call transactional relationships, that is they are a shared interaction for the benefit of both participants and is only possible between two members who have developed those healthy skills.
Fiduciary relationships are generally referred to as those in financial or legal arrangements where one of the individuals places their trust in the other who has a position of power, such as legal expertise to look after them. That person, with that authority must act with the sole purpose of benefitting the other. Teachers have that same responsibility towards their students.
In the hectic conditions experienced in difficult classrooms it is easy to forget this responsibility. Teachers who have retreated into their ‘self’ become inauthentic, they:
Ignore those things for which they are responsible, avoiding further stress
Put themselves above the student
Fail to deliver consequences for behaviour, positive and negative
Take the student’s behaviour personally
As I pointed out earlier, the quality of a relationship one can have with others depends on the relationship you have with your ‘self’. Too often we are victims of our own flawed beliefs, we interpret the students behaviour through previous experiences and this can cloud our judgement. If we acknowledge the potential for us to interpret the situation based on our suspicions we can adjust our understanding by making our decisions based on the real world not our internal world!
This is the essence of a fiduciary relationship, you make decisions based on your expert understanding of the ‘real world’ situation and act in a way that advances the growth of your student. There has been a whole industry built on the ‘study’ of what constitutes quality. However, I contend that there are four fundamental requirements never truly acknowledged in these descriptions. These are the characteristics of the teacher’s authentic understanding of their ‘self’ which allows them to develop functional relationships with their students. These are being:
Self- Aware – being conscious of the impact they will have on the student involved
Compassionate – Have a genuine concern for the student, putting them first with humility and generosity
Concerned – being sincerely interested in each student’s life, their concerns, their interests and their beliefs. Become fascinated by their life
Reliable – they have the ability to instil confidence in the others about their own abilities. This makes the student feel safe and secure in their presence
These characteristics are never discussed by academics or bureaucrats when describing quality teachers but without them the thousands of words, the T&D projects, the assessments are worthless!
Relationships underpin all our endeavours including in the classroom however, that between a teacher and student is not transactional, there is no equity, the student is not responsible for the teacher’s wellbeing but the teacher has a definite responsibility for the student’s wellbeing, it’s a fiduciary relationship and we have the obligation to gain the expertise to fulfil our contract.
I find it hard to think of a time when the management of the education of our children is in such disarray. Recent announcements by the Minister and I assume endorsed by her senior bureaucrats have exposed, what I believe to be a level of incompetence not previously experienced by the teaching profession. The implementation of an increased level of the supervision of teachers’ and schools’ performance, implies that they are not of ‘quality’ resulting in the unrealistic and inconsequential levels of accreditation, the purpose of which seems to reflect a complete distrust of the teaching profession. The latest initiative is to provide lesson plans to support the teachers, perhaps the most ill-informed and insulting policy I have seen.
As always, in a time of crisis there is plenty of well-meaning and intelligent advice to be offered which I can’t fault. Amongst these are the obvious ones:
Addressing the critical lack of funding for those schools that have the most need contrasted by the over-funding of already wealthy schools
A call for the reduction in the teachers’ workloads
Increase in the rates of pay for teachers
Promoting a culture of respect for teachers
Other innovations that have been adopted but which I feel are of little real value and are compounding the problem include:
An emphasis on leadership training, the idea that you can successfully train leaders is a top-down approach that resonates in the echo-chamber of academia, bureaucracy and the professional learning community. The people who promote this fallacy are the same ones who complain about the lack of ‘educators’ in the top levels of the Education Department. They realise leadership depends on experience and ‘corporate knowledge’ which is only gained through actually doing the work. Leaders emerge from the classrooms and schools – the bureaucratic skill can be gained after the foundations are in place.
Addressing teacher wellbeing is another distraction. I believe that teachers’ levels of stress, anxiety and depression are at record levels and there is good reason for that being the case. The term bantered about is to increase the teachers ‘capacity assuming there is no limit to the workload that can be addressed. This implies that the teachers are only exhausted because they are not up to the challenge.
There is a glaring omission from these opinions and this is the lack of recognition that there are children involved. Of course, there will be a righteous outcry that all these are proposed with a view of improving the education of the children. I contend there are two factors that the present attitude to learning that fail to get to the fundamentals of effective education.
The first of these is the stated aims of education. The NSW Education Department has the following mission statement – ‘ED's mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access’. This ambition of global competitiveness is reflected in most other documents relating to the goals of education, which infers education is preparation for competition, particularly in economic terms. Having our children ‘job ready’ means the needs of commerce direct curriculum.
The second impediment to true education has been the adoption in the mid 1990’s of outcomes-based education. This represented a narrowing of the focus of the curriculum offered in schools. The goal was not to develop an expansive learning experience where teachers had more freedom to tailor their lessons to the specific needs of their students but to narrow the focus of what should be taught. Of course this complemented the rise in the rationalist approach to all things managed from above – outcomes-based education conveniently lends itself to measurement. The Department could judge the efficiency of their ‘machine’ hence the obsession with the meaningless NAPLAN testing and reward or punish schools accordingly.
On the other hand the United Nations’ second principle of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child states:
The child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.
Those of you who have followed my work will not be surprised that I support these principles. I do not totally dismiss the need for students to be able to enter the workforce neither am I totally against having a purpose for our curriculum, these things are undoubtedly important but they are secondary to what I believe is the real purpose of education.
While writing my last book I discussed behaviour modification, in that case the conduct of students whose behaviour was extremely dysfunctional. I was faced with the following challenge – to what do we change their behaviour? I spent many hours researching different philosophies and examining my own beliefs. Eventually I came to the following four targets for the modification and these represent my goals of education.
Sense of Self
Every student has the right to believe they are special, precious and unique. Not all children are born into homes that support these characteristics, too many are raised in poverty, in abusive and/or neglectful families and develop a fragmented sense of their value. It is in our classrooms that these deficiencies at least have a chance of being addressed and how to do that is the focus of all our Newsletters.
Relatedness
We are an extremely social species and so many of our needs can only be satisfied through the interaction with other members of the community. Social skills are not instinctive, they are learned and how this happens again depends on the early childhood environment. Eventually relationships in a broad sense are transactional, that is we are entitled to have our needs met in the presenting environment but we have to be responsible to contribute back into that setting. Children have to learn how to do this and again the classroom may be the only place this can happen.
Autonomy
Autonomy differs from relatedness in that as adults we can operate in our community in a manner that respects the needs of others but we do not compromise our own beliefs. Autonomy emerges as the child develops from a completely dependent being, up until they can take control of their life. This journey in a sense parallels their brain’s development. It must be recognized that healthy independence is not that you have no need for others, of course everyone needs others and relationships are crucial for satisfying your personal needs. Autonomy is the process of establishing these relationships while maintaining independence.
Purpose
A healthy life is one that has a purpose, a direction. If you examine people who you would consider successful and contented you would see individuals involved in a range of endeavours. It doesn’t matter what these pursuits are as long as they are related to the individual’s intrinsic goals. In best cases an individual’s purpose is reflected in their vocation. I started my working life as an electrician, it was a good job but I did it just to provide me with the resources to pursue other activities. Later, when I became a teacher there was a change, I no longer worked only to get resources my work became my purpose and this has sustained me for nearly fifty years. Not everyone will be this lucky but people do need a purpose and schools should expose their students to a range of opportunities to explore.
Somewhere it is proclaimed ‘build on the rock and not upon the sand’ and in education it is the child’s qualities that provide the foundation, not the array of concerns and approaches outlined above. For too many kids their early environment does not provide the conditions that will allow them to develop such foundations. These are the kids who misbehave, are disengaged are ‘problems’ in the classroom. These are the kids who need their foundations repaired because without that any improvement in the quality of the teacher, their leadership skills or the manipulation of the curriculum will fail to make a difference.
In the last Newsletter that dealt with anxiety we concluded as we often do, the importance of the environment when dealing with students with severe behaviours. Compassionately delivering a persistent, consistent and structured approach to discipline and welfare is the only way non-mental health professionals can help these damaged kids but it is not easy and it takes a good deal of time; therefore patience is required!
It takes time because it requires a change in the beliefs of these children. We first addressed the importance of beliefs way back at the beginning of this blog (see Newsletter 5. – Beliefs – 2 May 2017 and Newsletter 89 - Faulty beliefs – 11 June 2019). They are important because beliefs generate our behaviour. For those damaged kids raised in dysfunctional, abusive and/or neglectful families this task becomes even more challenging. The reasons are complex and I will explain them in a broad and sequential sense.
The purpose of the brain is to allow us to survive in the environment in which we find ourselves. We do this by either acting in a way that protects us from threats or acquiring things that nourish us. Therefore, for every challenging situation we face we have a simple choice about how to act. This will be based on whether this is a threat to my survival or an opportunity to enhance my life. This is the elementary task of the brain and the foundation and characteristics of our ‘beliefs’!
The creation of our beliefs begins at birth. More than any other species human babies are unable to look after their self. They rely on the actions of their primary care-givers and have no choice but to adopt the behaviours that complement the support that is provided. They learn how to act though modelling their carer’s behaviour or by altering their behaviour so that carer will provide them with what they need to survive in a homeostatic manner. These lessons are remembered and become their beliefs, the idea they deliberately make a
‘choice’ about their behaviour is almost meaningless.
The series of illustrations below show how memories are formed and how those memories become our ‘self’, an amalgamation of our beliefs. Either as an infant or an adult the process is the same:
In the first instance they are in a situation that threatens their security and they act. Through trial and error, they discover whether each action provides a consequence that either improves the situation or makes things worse.
Over a series of attempts the successful behaviour becomes progressively more powerful, not only having more neural connections but having these connections insulated with a covering of myaline to make them more permanent, they become automatic! At this point our memory is formed which allows us to now choose the behaviour that best worked before when confronted by the same or very similar situations.
The final illustration shows how we ‘decide’ to act when confronted with a threatening situation. The stimulus from the threat provides the ‘situation’ and by referencing both our emotional and cognitive memories we act. This is our beliefs in action!
Through early childhood we develop a whole system of memories, schemas across the brain that allow us to identify our ‘self’ in our environment. They become the cornerstone of the predictive function of the brain for a given set of circumstances.
We develop an established set of behaviours we expect to work. In other Newsletters (See 125 – Expectations – 17th February 2020) we discussed the process outlined above and how this provided an expectation of how we could navigate the environment.
The expectation is the imagined consequence for a situation based on past experience.
This is where the difficulty is in addressing children with severe behaviours exists. Although it is a complex situation the following relatively simplistic explanation will help.
In any environment an individual will have a multitude of incoming stimulus; estimates vary from 80,000 to one million. It is in the brain the decision is made about which of these we will attend and this will be those who have the potential to threaten us or provide the ‘resources’ to enhance our life. Toby Wise of the University of London points out that people prioritize their attention when determining safety or danger in a busy setting, such as crossing a road. This suggests that people pay more attention to things they have learned associated with danger; I would also include those things they want that will satisfy some deficit in their needs. This doesn’t mean the brain isn’t aware of the total environment but because of our beliefs it has predicted where the attention should be focused.
A significant subdivision of the brain, the reticular activity system – a network of neurons located at the top of the brain stem filters information from the external and internal environment and projects these onto the cerebellum for evaluation. Repetitive, meaningless stimuli are ignored while those learned, conditions that effect our wellbeing memories - our beliefs, are considered. The very structure of our brain subconsciously even unconsciously reinforces the importance of our beliefs.
A quick aside, the reticular activity system often referred to as the RAS is promoted as a means of changing behaviour including engaging disconnected students by presenting learning material in a novel way to stimulate interest. Whether this is a valid technique or another fad is beyond this essay but I suspect this would not work with highly damaged students as it requires the student to be in a calm condition.
This is why real patience is required. Students whose severe dysfunctional behaviour have a belief system that has worked for them in the dysfunctional environment in which they were formed. They have these beliefs because they kept them alive; they are their life support. Unfortunately, the behaviours driven by them do not work in a functioning environment like the classroom. Secondly, these beliefs are overwhelmingly formed in early childhood and they are particularly hard to change, they are considered as non-plastic because of the strength of the neural pathway and the efficiency of the myalinated sheaths that protect them. These students have to overcome powerful forces to make necessary changes in their behaviour.
The only way you can change these established beliefs is to engage the process that first formed the memories of the connection between actions and consequences and only when the brain is calm enough to behave in a way that is contrary to their instincts. And, it will only be after you establish new beliefs that the reticular activity system will change its focus and admit positive stimulus.
Changing beliefs in a classroom is predominantly training in relationships and satisfying responses to situations; it is social skills training. A pioneer in this field was Arnold Goldstein the professor of Psychology and Education at Syracuse University. He introduced a method of social skills training in 1973 to deal with juveniles in detention. His techniques are still effective today.
He overtly taught the children in his charge how to act in a manner that would be acceptable within the cultural environment that is for us, the school. This was done through the following processes:
Modelling – the children are shown examples of how to behave in a given situation where previously they have failed to get what they want. The model needs to be someone who the students respect.
Role-Playing – The students are given scenarios to investigate through acting out how they should behave. This process can be threatening at first but will become a powerful tool in changing behaviour. Remember, the brain, where memories are formed and stored after a while will form the memories from the role play as an alternative choice for the student. The scenarios, at first are provided by the teacher, later can be from a random list or when engaged at the request of the participants.
Performance Feedback – This initially is provided by the facilitator but as the students engage they can all contribute. Approval is the best type of reinforcement and as the skills become more accepted there will be an intrinsic reward that follows. They will start to enjoy the process of rehearsal and the rewards that go with that. The satisfaction comes when they take these new skills and use them successfully in their day to day experiences.
Working with these most difficult kids is extremely difficult and you will need lots of patience and resilience, remember their personal, dysfunctional temperament was put on them by others when they had no defence. If you hang in with them they can learn to take control of their life and function in the classroom and society. When you succeed appreciate what a significant piece of work you have achieved, an outcome that out-weighs any NAPLAN result!
We first examined anxiety in a previous Newsletter (Number 234: Anxiety – 17 August 2020) however, it is time to re-examine this important topic! The world, according to the news is not a safe place with COVID still raging, the war in Ukraine, floods and fires because of global warming, the list goes on. Then consider other childhood events that add to this anxiety; things such as bullying, family break-ups, abuse and neglect - all at record levels and the stresses at today’s schools made worse with widespread absenteeism of teachers and the lack of consistent coverage of classes. These situations are hard enough for adults but children are much more susceptible to suffer from anxiety in such conditions.
Because of the sequential development of the brain during childhood, the very progressive organisation of their cognitive abilities, from an affective domination through to an intellectual makes it much more difficult to apply those cognitive support programs that are so popular in schools.
In 2015, 6.8% of children suffered from diagnosed anxiety disorders which would be an under representation of the real numbers as so many are not reported. The Melbourne Child and School Psychological Services reports that ‘there is an epidemic of anxiety amongst children’!
To recap from the previous Newsletter a diagnosis of generalized anxiety is present if three or more of the following are experienced in a six-month period:
Restlessness
Fatigue
Concentration Problems
Irritability
Muscle Tension
Sleep Disorders
In general, anxiety is described in three ways:
Panic Attacks– where there is an immediate fear that the child is facing a catastrophe and has nowhere to go. These are generally short term and result in the child avoiding any situation that ignites that emotion. However, these situations can be really traumatic and move well beyond anxiety.
Social Anxiety– This is the fear and avoidance of any situation in which a child thinks they may be the centre of attention that can lead to their embarrassment. It is no surprise that social anxiety is the predominant form of stress in children, especially adolescents.
Generalized Anxiety– This is where the child worries over everyday things for months at a time. They are children who will avoid what we may consider to be mundane or are constantly seeking clarification or reassurance before they attempt any task.
Anxiety can be directly connected to fear and the stress that is a result of that fear. However, this is not an appropriate response to a real-time threat but one that is imagined. The ability to predict what will happen in the future has set us aside from other species. We are capable of generating the same response if we think something will happen as when it does happen. This predictability has kept us safe in a dangerous world.
If for instance you are walking through a dark forest and you avoid an attack from a wild animal the next time you go into a dark bushland you will feel a bit anxious and if you hear a noise in those bushes I’m sure you wouldn’t go to investigate. I daresay, for no real reason most of us have an inherited a sense of anxiety walking through a dark landscape!
This is described as anticipatory stress where we activate a stress-response because we anticipate a looming physical or social danger. We generate the same response if we “think” we are about to be attacked when there is no real evidence! If we apply this experience to the worrying situations outlined at the start of this essay it is little wonder the anxiety children suffer is a real problem for teachers.
We have always advocated the need for creating calm and supportive classroom environments. The illustration below demonstrates what happens when a child’s stress levels are elevated.
As can be seen the only time the child has full access to their cognitive ability is when they are calm. As the stress levels elevate the child ‘gates-down’ on their ability to think in ways other than how they will defend themselves. This general adaptive response is critical when faced with a real threat but is debilitating when the threat is imagined. Anxious children rarely move past a condition of concrete thought, that is limited to what is already known because they are vigilant! There is little capacity for creativity or the learning of new work.
To return to anxiety and the difficulties of dealing with this problem for children. Three of the major assemblages of the brain’s structure are the amygdala, the hippocampus and the prefrontal lobes. These have a major role in the management of our emotional state and therefore our level of anxiety.
The amygdala is a cluster of cells positioned either side of the brain towards the base. Its main purpose is to regulate emotions. This becomes very important when the individual is under threat. The fear generated has the amygdala’s first reaction to be the initiation of the fight/flight response.
Unlike the amygdala which is functioning from birth if not before, the hippocampus doesn’t develop until about age three. The broad function of the hippocampus is to link our emotional responses to various situations with an intellectual understanding.
Part of these functions is to facilitate the creation of long-term memories, it has often been described as the brain’s ‘librarian’. Another significant task is to link our emotional state with the prefrontal lobes where our reasoning occurs. This means that the child’s ability to cognitively examine the situation that had provoked the stress is not available until about age three. This does not mean there is no memory of the threat, there is an emotional association with that stimulus. However, as the hippocampus develops it puts reason on to the association between the situation and the response.
Finally, the prefrontal lobes do not develop until about age eleven. Much has been written about the teenage brain and most of these developments are because at this time the prefrontal lobes become influential enough to project solutions to difficult situations back onto the hippocampus and amygdala. These advanced functions allow us to examine the situation with reference to our memories of what we have experienced in the past and predict what will happen in our current situation if we act in certain ways. The more strongly we have developed these associations the more confident and therefore more composed we will be. In essence, those who have had an assured childhood will be less susceptible to anxiety!
This process has been described by Joseph E. LeDoux an American neuroscientist. The illustration is a modification of his theory.
What can be seen that an incoming stimulus goes through the cerebellum to the thalamus which then feeds to the various parts of the brain particularly the hippocampus and amygdala. If it is an immediate threat the amygdala takes over, a lower threat can go through the hippocampus on to the prefrontal lobes which over-rule the immediate response.
As can be seen, this ability to rationalise away anxiety is not available until early adulthood which means children are much more vulnerable to anxiety. In the first three years there is no pathway for low level threat, infants are very emotionally driven!
As always, our focus is on those children who have suffered early childhood abuse and neglect and for these kids, anxiety is almost a given. In a previous Newsletter (192. Early Childhood Trauma - 7 March 2022) we discussed the physical alterations of various parts of the brain. The three areas of direct concern regarding anxiety are:
The Amygdala which is sensitive to fear, has increased in size which makes the child more vigilant and therefore very anxious.
The hippocampus is reported to have a 12% reduction in size which impacts on their ability to comprehend incoming stimulus and the formation of memories.
Prefrontal lobes are 20% smaller and have lesions on the surface. It is in this area of the brain, often referred to as ‘the executive’ where complex decisions are made.
These real changes to the capabilities of each part result in a tangible loss in their ability to deal with anxiety!
The conclusions to these Newsletters may appear repetitious but there is a reason for this. To address anxiety, along with all other forms of neuro-atypical challenges such as early childhood PTSD requires the expertise of mental health professionals. Teachers do not have these qualifications nor the time to address these on an individual basis. However, we still have to manage these children in our classrooms. We do this by providing a learning environment that minimises the probability of the student being stressed! Therefore, we need to establish positive relationships with all our students and an environment that is structured, expectations are known and consequences, both positive and negative are consistent and persistent!
The Minister’s idea that the offer of an increase in pay would solve the complete systems failure of NSW’s Public School’s education department reveals her inability to grasp even the fundamental problems facing our schools; the inadequacies that exist have reached crisis point. There are many obvious explanations of what is wrong primarily the insufficient funding which Trevor Cobbold from the Save our Schools - public schools advocacy group persistently identifies. Another evident problem is the exhausting, non-teaching duties and administrative workload that has grown in recent years. It would seem, if the political will existed these problems could be easily solved. However, the contemporary education bureaucracy is underpinned by a faulty belief system that is the corner stone of all public services, the dependence on the principles of neoliberalism.
The erosion of the prevailing system began back in the swinging sixties when western society made a valiant attempt to break the repressive shackles of conservatism and ‘the church’. This contest between the policies of the establishment and this desire for freedom fuelled the intense coverage of the war in Vietnam. The emerging youth culture that questioned the actions of the existing authority led to a decade of social upheaval. The rear-guard actions of the establishment, desperate to keep their hold on their society culminated in the political assassination of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King.
People, especially the youth wanted to take back their ‘power’ and the obvious enemy was the State and ‘Big Brother’. The focus for change shifted to the individual taking personal responsibility! In a time when the Cold War had divided the western world into two camps, this notion of individual responsibilities and choice was embraced as the antidote by the west as the antithesis of the Soviet Block.
What followed was an enthusiastic adoption of an economic paradigm referred to as neo-liberalism. This model had emerged in the 1930’s, following the Great Depression when liberal scholars adopted this non-interventionist approach to the economy as a safeguard against the social move to centralisation. Their ideas centred around the need for competitive market places instead of the state controlling commerce.
Neoliberalism remained little more than an economic theory until the sixties when the urge to individualism was enthusiastically wedded to this economic model. The protagonists of this time who promoted this marriage of the power of the individual and the free-market were that ‘loving couple’, Reagan and Thatcher. As Thatcher pointed out, her goal was to “change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society – from a give-it-to-me to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.” The responsibility for success was determinedly connected to the effort of the individual!
The belief in individualism,became embedded in media and popular culture producing two supporting philosophies. The first, popularised in the best-selling book published towards the start of the 1960’s was Michael Young’s ‘The Rise of Meritocracy’. This work reinforced the ideas of individuality that could be traced back to the teachings of Confucius and Plato in his book ‘The Republic’. If you adopt the values of meritocracy then not only is it the individual’s responsibility to care for themselves but to succeed you must earn that success! The second assumption that supports neoliberalism is the concept of ‘grit’! If you accept the meritocracy premise you are rewarded on merit then the message that ‘determination and passion’ for long-term goals was a better predictor of success than intelligence must also follow! Together, the philosophies of ‘meritocracy’ and ‘grit’ determined that any failure was because the individual just didn’t deserve to succeed.
There is an assumption made that would make this reliance on the individual a successful model and that is the concept of equity. That is every member of society has the same abilities and opportunities. This unintelligent belief is embedded in the US Constitution - “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Therefore, the inference that appeals to those in power is that if the individual fails it is their fault!
What has become clear since the adoption of this approach to all aspects of social and economic management is that, in aggregate terms things have become a great deal better; the growth of the economy has been spectacular. However, the returns from this burgeoning economy have not been shared equally.
The emergence of a new class of extremely successful individuals – I use success in this context to mean wealth. It is difficult for these successful individuals not to support the concepts of neoliberalism, their success infers they have deserved it, they are meritorious and gritty! With this wealth comes power and they use this power to perpetuate this approach to governance.
Returning to education, parallel with the rise in neo-liberalism has been the continual ‘renewal’ of education based on the practices all underpinned by the ‘rationalist’ approach. Successive reforms have been imposed on schools and individual teachers all of which demand economic efficiency, the idea we can get more for our dollars if our staff work harder and that if the teachers do work harder they will be rewarded. Of course, this concept continually re-emerges with nauseating regularity in the hoary old ‘performance payments’ mantra being repetitively trotted out by governments!
A cursory examination of the ‘reforms’ made in NSW reveals a sequence of interventions designed to make the teachers ‘better’. At first the education bureaucrats introduced ‘productive pedagogy’ - make the lessons more efficient. Then teachers were taught ‘increase their capacity’, that is train them to do more. These were followed by that magical feature of efficiency, goal-setting presented under the guise of personal performance profiles where each teacher had to single out four areas where they identified their goals that would track their improvement. Of course, their efforts would be monitored. Schools were also targeted for improvement with external teams of ‘support’ staff to scrutinise their performance and in true competitive spirit these results were published so parents could reward those schools who played the game. None of these reforms did little to break the continuous slide into the prevailing chaos which is the current situation in NSW schools.
Along with the direct action of management, there has been some recognition by the department on the wellbeing of the staff and it is interesting that even associations that represent teachers have adopted this mantra by focusing their supporting activities both on improving staff capacity and looking after their wellbeing – a healthy teacher is a productive teacher.
There is plenty of advice on how to improve teacher wellbeing. Acton and Glasgow present an excellent synthesis of these theories in the Australian Journal of Teaching Education. They defined it as “an individual sense of personal professional fulfilment, satisfaction, purposefulness and happiness, constructed in a collaborative process with colleagues and students”. They contend that for teachers to be supported there is value in their inclusion in the decisions that influence their work. This inclusion will allow them to better negotiate the systems that are imposed on them. They suggested the following concepts that support teachers’ wellbeing:
Reconnect to your purpose
Adopt a growth mindset
Focus on kindness and gratitude
Create clear boundaries between home and school
Set-up effective debriefing and mentoring structures
Establish good sleeping habits
Build-up your emotional resilience
Keep focused on your goals
Even a cursory examination of these tips illustrates the fundamental flaw in this approach. That is, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to make things better!
Acton and Glasgow almost get to the same conclusion as I have when they assert, and I paraphrase, that ‘the possibilities for supporting teacher wellbeing are mediated by neoliberal policy considerations.’ Every piece of advice offered on this list requires the teacher to take action, that is, all change must be in the teacher’s approach to their work!
The system is at breaking point, vacant positions are not being filled, graduates are turning away from education as a career and teachers are leaving in record numbers. There is a real crisis but the impediment to introducing sensible changes remains locked in the philosophy of neoliberalism and that is, if we can deal with the efficiency and the wellbeing of the existing staff the problem will go away.
After the decades of efficiency improvement and interventions to improve wellbeing it is blatantly obvious that neoliberal approaches to education have been an abject failure! Until the government takes a critical look at how they are supporting schools nothing will change.
Avoiding Manipulation Part 2: Developing Boundaries
In the previous Newsletter we discussed techniques students use to avoid the stress associated with facing the painful impact from stressful, negative consequences that are imposed as a result of their behaviour. As pointed out the continual use of such behaviours can easily become addictive, that is they are the ‘go-to’ response in times of rejection or psychological pain.
There are many types of addictions described in the previous essay, substance, activities and people. That is when we can’t endure the pain of the situation we will habitually access one of these types of protection from the stress. The objective of this work is to focus on ‘people addiction’ as this describes the behaviours used to manipulate the stressor. However, a brief account of ‘substance ‘addiction’ and ‘activities addiction’ will be given.
Substance addiction is probably the most commonly portrayed of these addictions. This is when the individual alters their emotional state with the use of chemicals. The popular media focuses on those illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine but the more common legal substances such as alcohol and the multitude of other substances such as anti-depressants and food, either binge eating or anorexia are used to avoid the pain. Dealing with these addictions is not the occupation of a teacher.
Activity addiction is another way of dismissing stressful situations. This is when you take your mind off the presenting problem by focusing on an alternative behaviour. By doing this you become too busy to deal with the current stressful situation. This works in the short term but like all addictions it never prepares the person in a way that will allow them to address the same or similar situations in the future in a healthy manner.
Types of activities that are used by children to escape the stress are often the latest craze. Things like computer games or collecting cards. Sport is another common distraction, either participation or supporting a particular team. Adults will also access these activities perhaps becoming ‘mad’ football fans. One addiction that is difficult to acknowledge is an addiction to work. The workaholic is not easily identified as an addict, despite the descriptive name pointing that out! In school the student that spends so much time doing their work will most likely be rewarded with complements and good grades. The teaching workaholic will have the same outcome with being recognised as competent and likely being promoted.
It must be remembered that these activities are the walls of protection and although they keep the stress out in the short term these behaviours eliminate the ability to get their nurturing needs met!
The addiction we will focus on in this Newsletter is the people addiction. This deals with dysfunctional responses to the stressful interaction between individuals, specifically the teacher and the student! The underpinning concept behind the model presented below is that, when students are stressed by the behaviour of the teacher they will attempt to manipulate that teacher to change their behaviour. This is a case where, if the presenting environment clashes with the set of beliefs disrupting homeostatic equilibrium, instead of modifying beliefs the student attempts to change the environment!
The model recognises three types of manipulative behaviours, overt and covert control and resistance.
Overt Control
This is a case of when the teacher stresses the student that child will behave in a way that is calculated to stress the teacher so much that they will stop stressing them. They do this by either actively physically or emotionally attacking them. These could be threats of aggression or in extreme cases actual violence. Emotionally, they may attempt to denigrate the teacher by making fun of them or through threatening accusations about their behaviour. The idea is, if you stress me I will stress you even more until you give up!
Covert Control
This is a more passive attempt to avoid being stressed in the first place. These students will do almost anything to eliminate the need for the teachers to actually stress the student. For the teacher, this approach is not threatening, they do what you want. However, when they act this way solely to avoid being challenged they are using a type of ‘walled’ behaviour and walls may stop the stress but they deny the student getting their legitimate needs met.
Resistive Behaviour
These students really won’t engage in the classroom. When they are challenged they withdraw. While ever they resist the behaviours of the teacher or others they simply disengage. These students like others use this behaviour as a protective wall and by so they deny themselves the opportunity to grow, getting their needs met! They employ tactics like refusing to intellectually engage in class activities and physically becoming isolated in the room or playground. They generally refuse to participate in the faulty belief that if they don’t they can’t be hurt!
Of course, unless we learn to deal with stress then these addictive behaviours to avoid stress continue throughout life. Unfortunately, there are too many teachers who use these strategies to deal with the stress students impose on them. The following diagram illustrates the ways these occur.
As can be seen, the methods of avoidance are so similar however, the impact on the students is more harmful because children are in the process of developing their belief systems and if you recall a recent Newsletter (Number 204 - The Importance of Personal Presentation - It's not what you do but how you do it – 13 June 2022), the students will adopt the behaviours presented by the teacher, reinforced because of the modelling and the qualities of mirror neurons. A quick summary is as follows:
Overt control
These teachers are authoritarian bullies and because of their position they most often succeed in getting the students to cease being a threat to their authority. By frightening the students the resulting anxiety detracts from the potential learning that could be available.
Covert Control
These teachers attempt to be ‘friends’ with the students, they are reluctant to challenge them in case they retaliate creating the feared stress in the teacher. These teachers will put-up with low level, dysfunctional behaviours which makes the classroom unpredictable. Perhaps more damaging is that they don’t teach the students responsibility. They will accept substandard work, late submission and even pardon lack of completion. The result is the children do not acquire that self-reliance and the relationship between effort and results.
Resistive
These teachers will not properly follow the instructions of the department and the school. In secondary schools they will dismiss any whole school approach to welfare with comments such as ‘I teach science, I’m not a social worker’. My pet observation was always in staff meetings, especially those held in the library, these teachers would sit up the back and grab a book to look at while school policies were discussed. Of course their lack of commitment put their students at a distinct disadvantage!
So what to do, as stated in the last Newsletter the use of boundaries will help teachers and students learn to deal with stress rather than protect themselves. We discussed what boundaries are but the following presents techniques that help you create them.
The following are steps that will impose boundaries for you. They may feel ‘artificial’ at first but eventually they will become automatic:
Stay calm - when you feel yourself becoming anxious stop and try to relax. It is important you stay ‘in the moment’.
Ask yourself ‘what is really happening’ – too often what you see is a result of what is truly happening; it is not always the first thing you see. You won’t always get this right but never jump to conclusions.
Then ask who is responsible:
If it is me then I must change my behaviour – that is I must learn another way to behave
If its not me, then it’s the student therefore I can’t ignore the problem. I must work out what I want to have happen and learn to make the changes to get that result.
Take action -you must make an effort if you want to make a change. Learning new behaviours is not easy you have to over-ride existing beliefs.
Evaluate – after a period of time assess whether or not the stressful problem still exists. If so assess the effectiveness of your application of your solution, perhaps you were not vigilant enough. But if you were thorough in your efforts then go through these steps again.
The approach above does require some cooperation from the students but when dealing with very dysfunctional students the following approach can be used. This consists of a directive and the description of consequences both of compliance and defiance:
If you … (clearly describe the offending behaviour)
I will … (outline the consequences)
In some extreme cases the student’s behaviour is beyond the ability of a classroom teacher and a main stream school and in these cases the system should provide assistance!
Interactions in the classroom will always generate some clashes between the teachers’ beliefs and that developing of the student. The use of addictive, walls of behaviours will reduce the resulting stress in the short term however, the same or similar threatening situations will re-emerge. If you take the time to learn how to deal with these issues when they arise, you will have a behaviour that will deal with that problem, you eliminate the stress in future incidents. However, don’t get too comfortable life continually throws-up different problems to face. Using the process of boundaries will help you navigate your way through this changing but always interesting life!
Avoiding Manipulation - Part 1: Developing Boundaries
In the next series of Newsletters we will examine methods students use to try to avoid facing the consequences of their behaviour. The descriptions of the various strategies they use are universal and understanding these will help you navigate through your day-to-day life. As indicated in our previous work, behaviour is initiated when we are in disequilibrium, that is our sense of self is being threatened or the things we require are out of reach. It is at these times we need to act in a way to change either our beliefs or the environment we face. Beliefs are very difficult to modify and so the natural, first response is to change the environment. In our work the focus is on managing the student’s behaviour and so we will concentrate on the tactics they may employ to get the teacher to change their behaviour, mostly to avoid a negative consequence.
This interaction between the teacher and student operates in the part of our cognitive system which deals with our social contacts. Disagreements in these exchanges can produce levels of stress that are very uncomfortable. In the past children have developed behaviours that will protect them from the painful feelings associated with experiences of pain or rejection. For the children on whom we focus, those with severely disruptive behaviours, it must be remembered that these behaviours were established in their early childhood.
These children learned how to act in a way that protected them because in their social environment they offered some defence against the behaviour of their abusers. Their actions were functional in a dysfunctional family, but are ineffective in a ‘normal’ environment. Because these tactics had worked it is understandable that they will use them when similar situations arise. This continual return to behaviours that alleviate psychological pain is at the heart of addiction.
The illustration below demonstrations how this practice operates identifying the types of addiction people exhibit.
The use of the term addiction is in a limited sense. In the literature that relates to addiction there are a range of defined types of behavioural addictions but for this work I have placed them in three categories, substance, activities and people, the latter being behaviours we habitually use to relieve the immediate stress from threatening personal interactions. These behaviours are what ‘build the walls’ around the individual to keep the stress out. These walls are impervious which ensures the stress can not get in. The tragedy is that not only does it shield the individual from stressful threats, it also excludes the information that might help the individual deal with the distressing problem in a way that develops behaviours that would ensure the environmental conditions could be addressed in a productive manner.
The figure above illustrates this point. Of course the addictive behaviours, the walls created by specific actions may keep the stress out they also imprison the individual who can not grow in the confronting environment.
This brings us to a discussion about boundaries, specifically in regard to these issues surrounding manipulation. For detailed information about boundaries see:
Our personal boundaries are the physical and psychological space between you and the outside world. They define where you start in relation to others and how that relationship can cause stress; in fact any intrusion of your boundary will trigger an emotional response. Boundaries are primarily there to protect the individual in the same manner as those walls discussed above but they are not there to limit pleasure. For example, when you hold your child in your arms the emotions are so rewarding just as when your loved-one holds your hand. These intrusions into our boundaries meet our needs.
The effect the contact has on you depends on your current set of beliefs and emotional memories about the nature of that contact and how it matches with your sense of self.
In fact, boundaries are an expression of your sense of self. This is why those children who have suffered abuse find it very difficult to let others in, for them violation is associated with physical or psychological pain, the walls have kept them alive. It takes a great deal of courage to take down those walls!
Simply put boundaries are controlling what is OK and what is not OK for you!
When we let people get away with what’s not OK we resent them
When we assume that people are doing the best they can – they are not being ‘OK’ deliberately, we don’t resent them
You can never know if the other person is doing the best they can, but if you assume they are then it makes it easier for you to deal with them with compassion. It is generous to make this assumption and it will create a great change in the way you deal with these students.
You become more authentic in your approach to others
We are not comfortable setting boundaries, it is natural to want:
The students to like you
To not upset the students
To punish the students
The illustration below clarifies the concept of boundaries.
In this essay I have explained the concept of how the behaviours we adopt to protect ourselves in an abusive situation become the behaviour we believe will protect us. Unless we learn new ways to deal with similar challenges in a healthy environment we will revert to these behaviours. This is at the heart of addiction, just as that well-worn maxim points out ‘insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result’!
The development of boundaries, for these children is extremely difficult because it relies on understanding the processes of being nourished in a healthy environment and trust. This is where the teacher can be their restorative chance. If I could provide only one skill to those children it would be to have them develop healthy boundaries.
The Importance of Personal Presentation - It's not what you do but how you do it.
In a recent Newsletter we discussed the importance of the way you present yourself to the school community, particularly your class (See Newsletter 202 - Survival Tips for Casual Teachers – 30 May 2022). In this essay we will expand on how you present yourself to your students as this is critical in controlling their emotional state. It is often suggested that 93% of the emotional content of any communication is conveyed through non-verbal cues, these being facial expression, body language and tone of voice. The percentage may be in dispute but it is true that the feelings you have towards a student will not be conveyed by the words you use but how you deliver them.
This is so important when you are correcting the behaviour of highly disruptive students who have a history of abuse and/or neglect. Your use of these non-verbal cues will go a long way in deciding if you maintain a positive relationship whilst delivering unpleasant consequences.
This opinion goes beyond ‘common-sense’ it is underpinned by neurological knowledge. We are social creatures and how we are accepted in our community determines our safety and security. Our survival depends on how we can carefully convey to others what we want and also understand the intentions of others when they are dealing with us. The rich array of neurons that exist in the brain to support the various functions includes a specialised set called mirror neurons.
Essentially, mirror neurons are intimately involved in our movements. At the basic level mirror neurons fire when we generate a physical action. They also fire the same neurons in ourselves when we watch an action taken by someone else. This helps us to imitate that action thus providing the proof why the demonstration of desired behaviours to students is so important. More than this they allow us to experience the associated emotions and predict the possible outcomes that will likely follow any observed behaviour. They are responsible for myriad of other sophisticated human behaviour and thought processes.
At the University of Parma in 1996, a group of neuroscientists were busily mapping the neural pathways associated with hand movement in Macaque monkeys. The team of Rizzolatta, Gallese, and Fogassi uncovered what is potentially the most significant neurological component in human behaviour. These researchers placed electrodes in the ventral premotor cortex of the macaque monkey to study neurons specialized for the control of hand and mouth actions. They recorded electrical signals from a group of neurons in the monkey's brain while the monkey was allowed to reach for pieces of food, so the researchers could measure their response to certain movements.
In a break in the experiment one of the research team reached out to pick-up a piece of food. The research subject had remained connected to the recording device and to their amazement they found the same neurons fired as they did when the monkey picked up the food themselves. This explained the link between imitation and learning, not only skills but also importantly the emotional intention of others. (To provide more detail about mirror neurons in the Resource section of our webpage I have included a copy of a Chapter from my book - The Impact of Modern Neuroscience on Contemporary Teaching, 2017. Published by Xlibris and availably on Amazon).
Our focus has always been on those kids who, because of their history of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of their early childhood abuse and/or neglect are hyper-sensitive to the emotional signals given by adults in authority. They really struggle to accurately interpret the message the teacher is sending particularly when they are about to receive a negative consequence. Another feature of mirror neurons is that they not only fire when they perceive actions they infer a purpose on that action. How they predict what will happen is significantly influenced by their assessment of the teacher’s emotional state and that message will come almost entirely from the non-verbal content of the communication.
There is much available regarding non-verbal messaging on the internet and the following is a brief summary focusing on the broad categories of tone of voice, body language and facial expression.
Tone of Voice
It’s true, especially for the dysfunctional kids, the way you say things has more impact than what you say. The emotional content is interpreted long before the cognitive substance of that message. And your emotional state will be communicated through your voice. The tone you use must match the attributes of the message you are delivering. If the message is about a serious issue then your voice should convey that sentiment, if it’s good news then your tone would be more up-lifting. Of course, the tone must match your facial expressions.
Not everyone has good control over this feature of communication and the following tips may help:
If you speak with a slightly lower volume level you will be seen as having more ‘authority’. However, too soft and the students might not hear you. If you have a voice that is too loud then you will come across as being abrasive. Most importantly the class or individual must hear you!
The pace of your communication is another way you can manipulate the message. If you slow-down a fraction it projects a sense of confidence which will be conveyed to the children. It also gives them the opportunity to absorb the message. If it becomes too slow they will disengage and conversely if too quickly you will appear to be anxious and nervous.
It is not easy to change the way you speak but mastering the art of giving a message with the right emotional content is the hallmark of a great teacher.
Body Language
How you hold yourself projects an impression on those who observe you. In general terms if you present an ‘open’ posture, that is stand up straight, feet firmly planted on the ground and chin up this projects to the students that you are friendly, open and confident. They will be willing to trust you.
However, if you present a ‘closed’ posture, slumped forward, hands in your pockets or just lazing in a chair at the front of the room you project an unfriendly even hostile persona which will make the students anxious.
The use of your hands is an important indicator of your personality. Sometime ago, as a new principal I was sent to a workshop on communication. At this venue the presenter emphasised that we needed to coordinate our hand gestures with what we were talking about. These days, when I watch TV shows like the Drum, where professional ‘talking heads’ give their opinions I cringe when some of them flap their hands about as if conducting the whole speech. There needs to be some hand movement otherwise you will appear wooden but too much either makes you look anxious or you just distract your audience.
If you touch you face or hair too much you really will look either nervous or disinterested in what you are saying.
Facial Expression
Facial expressions are really tied to emotions. There has been plenty of research that confirms that our facial expressions communicate our emotional state and more importantly if you think about the qualities of our mirror neurons they also project to the audience the intensions of the behaviour those emotions will drive.
There is strong evidence of seven universal emotions that are conveyed through our facial appearances. These are anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise.
The eyes are often described as the mirrors of our soul but it is the mouth that provides the major clue about our emotional state. The following are ways the mouth does this:
Pursed Lips – the tightening of the mouth indicates a level of disapproval or disgust
Lip Biting – this will convey a feeling of anxiety or stress
Covering the Mouth – this is an attempt to hide your emotions from others. This indicates a lack of trust both ways. You don’t trust yourself to be authentic and the audience will not trust you because they will conclude you are not honest.
Turned-Up or Turned-Down Lips – The direction the lips go has a direct correlation with your emotional state. If they are up, you’re smiling then you are happy. Down, frowning you are emotionally ‘down’. It is very difficult to have a turned-up smile on your face when you are angry at a student; that smile will be so obviously false!
Eye contact is also important. This varies on whether you are dealing with an individual student or the class. Looking at others captures their attentions but like hand gestures there is a balance.
If you are dealing with a single student eye contact is a real challenge. If you are discussing a behaviour issue, you may be delivering an unwanted consequence then eye contact should not be too intense. A rough guide would be about 60% of the time. BUT, if the student is really damaged, eye contact is really difficult for them and I’ve even found it better if I sit or stand beside them so I don’t set them off.
When talking to the whole class your eyes should be constantly scanning the room. However, if there are particular students whose attention you need then hold eye contact with them for about three to five seconds then move on. If you really do need to get that student’s attention still move away but come back relatively quickly.
Throughout these Newsletters predominantly considering how teachers help those students whose behaviour disrupts their learning and that of others, we have emphasised the importance of the level of stress a student experiences. This stress is a reaction to the emotional content of the environment they are experiencing at the time. You are the teacher and providing the learning environment is your professional expertise. This is why, to be an efficient educator you need to master the non-verbal skills outlined in this essay.
The Importance of Expectations for the Beginning Teacher
This Newsletter is one of a planned series designed to assist all teachers establish their expectations of their students whether this be at the start of a new semester or at the beginning of their careers. Long-time followers of our articles understand that all our approaches to effectively teaching curriculum are underpinned by three core strategies:
Relationships – this more than any other task will determine the success or otherwise of a teacher’s success.
Structure – the presence of a predictable relationship between actions and consequences provides a psychological security for both teachers and students.
Expectations – in Lewis Carroll’s 1856 masterpiece ‘Alice in Wonderland’ the following exchange underlines the importance of knowing where you want to go.
‘When she came to a fork in the road, Alice asked the Cheshire Cat which road to take. The Cheshire Cat enquired, “That depends on where you are going”. Alice replied “I don’t know”. “Then it doesn’t matter which road you take”. Answered the Cheshire Cat’.
This essay will focus on setting out and fortifying the expectations a teacher wants in the standards they require for the behaviour that is acceptable in the classroom. This approach is equally valid for academic work but our focus is on dealing with disruptive behaviours.
At the very start of your time with any class you need to clearly articulate what are your expectations. At the beginning of my career, nearly 50 years ago the advice was to come-in hard and squash any dissent and when you had the class scared of you then you could loosen-up! Obviously that approach would not work today and in all reality it did not really work then; ruling by fear never works. However, there is some good sense in that you need to be particularly persistent in the reinforcement of your expectations. You do this by using verbal and non-verbal language to acknowledge appropriate behaviour and correct inappropriate behaviour. When you are giving Instructions know where you want to go and give clear instructions on how to get there.
How to Establish Expectations
Initially, present a small number of rules to students. These can be imposed by you or developed in class meetings. Developing rules in a class meeting can also be effective (Newsletter 96. - Creating Structure - 6 April 2020 has a summary of how to do this in a formal way). This is particularly important at the beginning of your time with a class or when you meet on an irregular basis where there may not have been time to develop a positive rapport with them. When you establish a rule publish it where it can be seen. Keep the rules short, simple and clear. Examples of these general rules might be:
Follow teacher’s instructions
Keep hands and feet to yourself
Be respectful of others and property
Stay on task
Discuss the rules with the class and it is as important to refer to them when they are being followed as it is when they are being disregarded.
Once you have established your expectations you will need to reinforce them until they become habitual in your classroom. You do this by either acknowledging when they are meeting your expectations and correcting them or when they are not. There is a balance between the amount of each approach, too much acknowledgement, constantly telling they are doing the ‘right thing’ reduces the effectiveness of this process. The same goes for correction, too much will cultivate a negative atmosphere in the classroom. The following illustrate the importance of this balance.
Imbalance One
Unclear expectations
The teacher gives inadequate information about his or her expectations (as indicated by the broken line around the triangle). This is problematic because students will be unsure about the limits and boundaries of the classroom and what tasks they need to be doing.
Imbalance Two
Too Much acknowledgement
This is problematic because the students are not being corrected appropriately. This is often the result of teachers trying to manage through friendliness. They believe ‘if I am nice to the students they will like me and behave themselves’. This can also occur because the teacher lacks assertiveness.
Imbalance Three
Too much Correction
Students become resentful and continue to act inappropriately due to lack of acknowledgement and encouragement. In this imbalance teachers may not intend to be negative but have developed the habit of attending to inappropriate behaviour. In most cases where the whole class behaves inappropriately, this is evidence of the imbalance.
Giving Feedback to Maintain Balance
How you give instructions will determine your effectiveness as a teacher. The following hints will help:
Clear, short instructions help students understand what they are expected to do.
Instructions help students organise what they are required to do
Instructions cue students that they need to be actively engaged with the curriculum
It is an important skill to evaluate the level of attention the students are giving you before you give instructions. To do this:
Use a verbal and/or non-verbal attention gaining prompt to focus student attention towards you.
Wait and scan; this gives students time to process the direction.
When student attention is focused, start the instruction with a verb, keeping it short.
Follow the instruction with a short pause and scan the class.
Why is parallel acknowledgement an effective management skill?
It cues other students to match the behaviour that is being acknowledged
It is an alternative to a redirection, so can help avoid nagging.
It contributes to a positive tone in the classroom.
Patterns of Acknowledgement
Body language encouraging – smiling nodding and moving near
Takes no time
Promotes positive tone and on-task behaviour
Strengthens relationships
Descriptive encouraging – describing the appropriate behaviour you see
Reinforces the rules
Promotes positive supportive learning environment
Use of Praise
Designed to reinforce appropriate behaviour through recognition
Potential for embarrassment of older recipients
Saying “good”, “terrific”, “well done” gives students very little information about their competence and has no training effect on other students in the class.
In the next Newsletter we will explore these concepts in more detail.
In recent years Departments of Education have deliberately moved to ‘casualise’ their work force. Despite this policy being one of the root causes of the current staffing crisis, casual teaching will remain a feature of our system. This type of work is challenging particularly if you are employed on a day by day basis. However, it is always a testing time on the first day you are appointed to any school. You arrive with little ‘corporate knowledge’ of how the school operates, its structures and expectations and as a new arrival you will be tested by the students to see if you can handle them. The following advice may help casuals survive the introduction into what I consider the best job in the world.
Arrival – First Day
This is when you will make your first impression on the principal, the staff and most importantly the students. As you may only be there for a day you don’t have the luxury of building a meaningful relationship so, especially in the classroom you must get off to a good start. The kids, like everyone will formulate an opinion of you in the first 20 seconds of your arrival. This is what is known as the primacy effect which will influence every subsequent interaction. The following points will help:
Be punctual – I understand that sometimes you will be called in at the last moment and you must deal with this. However, when possible arrive early; this will impress the person in charge of employing the casuals and give you time to familiarise yourself with the surroundings.
Acquaint yourself with the school management structure:
Have the staff member that is your immediate supervisor identified and introduce yourself to them
Be briefed on the behaviour management policy of the school
Be informed about procedural matters such as evacuations
Receive your teaching allocation for the day so you can quickly familiarise yourself with the assigned curriculum – in most cases you should be provided with the lessons you are expected to teach. However, in some cases this will not be provided and so you will need to have a set of interesting, educational lessons you can give to engage the class.
You may need to get work-sheets organised and the photocopying procedures will be different in each school.
Roll-marking procedures, you will probably be given a roll-call class. Most schools have on-line marking but in some cases the old hand roll marking might still be used and so you will need to know where to collect them, how to mark them and where they are sent for collating.
You will most likely be given a playground duty so find out when and where you are assigned
Get a plan of the layout of the school and the location of the staffroom with which you will be assigned.
Dress Professionally – as mentioned above you only get one chance to make a first impression and the way you are dressed will go a long way towards establishing that impression. Most educational departments have a dress code which is supported by the teaching unions. They understand that the way you dress influences the way students and the school community will respect you.
The style may vary depending on the circumstances of any particular school and also the climate in which the school is situated. In general, for a classroom teacher a normally smart business level of clean and tidy presentable attire will be sufficient. Remember, this is a school and modesty is paramount.
Bring Your Own ‘Supplies’ – you should not be expected to provide the equipment to deliver any lesson but you may not have easy access to things like marker pens, some schools have IPADs for roll-marking and you may need to use a smart phone. You should bring any resources you will need for times you have to improvise because you have not been left prepared lessons.
Also make sure you bring your own coffee mug, coffee and food. Most schools have a canteen but some smaller ones don’t so you will need to sustain yourself.
Also most staffrooms will have spare coffee cups and will share coffee but I think every teacher has been in a staffroom where, if you pick up the wrong cup there will be a ‘problem’, likewise you’ll be taking a risk if you help yourself to any coffee or tea supply! Better to look after yourself.
The Classroom
Being a first time casual you will not have the luxury of knowing the dynamics of the classroom and the things you would have normally in place will not be there. Things like seating plans, students with extra needs or the time periods for work to be completed. These are things you have to ‘wing’ in the first instance. What you can anticipate is that you will be ‘tested’ by the students.
As with the whole school, the first impression you make is critical. I assume you have dressed professionally and this impression can be enhanced by being first to the classroom. One of my mentors (not that he knew he was – I just watched him because he was so good) was always the first to the classroom. The message is that you want to be there with the kids. I know in some schools students line-up before they enter but I would suggest you let them in as they come. This gives you the chance to greet them personally as they arrive. Introduce yourself, ask them their name and smile!
Get straight into business, whatever the lesson is you have to deliver start by giving the students clear, direct instructions. In the early stages don’t give a choice, say what you want and move to the next instruction; if you pause too long they have a chance to get off-task. However, I do understand that you probably have to go back to the initial instruction but they will be aware that you mean business as far as the learning goes.
We have always advocated a pro-active approach to behaviour management and the following tips will help you take charge before you have to recapture the class:
Move about the class
Model the behaviour you expect
Explain tasks
Always be polite and friendly
Be accepting of all students
Interested
Be firm but friendly
Speak in a calm even tone
Refer to class rules and consequences if these are known
However, you will be challenged and will need to provide some discipline. When this is called for you will be delivering a message with some emotional content for the targeted students. Remember it is estimated that 93% of the emotional content is conveyed through non-verbal means, body language, facial expression and the tone of your voice. The most effective discipline is delivered this way. To do this you must:
Continue to act as if their behaviour has no effect on you
Maintain a steady, positive gaze
Speak clearly
Maintain appropriate eye contact – be careful you don’t turn eye-contact into glaring at the students
Stand up straight
Address the behaviour without threatening the individual – we always accept the child and reject the behaviour
Never apologise for not getting emotionally involved
Remain silent after you deliver your message
Allow them time to digest the message
Give them time to make a decision.
The following diagram explains the gradient on which each strategy should be used from the subtle least invasive at the bottom to the most invasive which should rarely be used at the top:
As a new casual you will not have had the time to set-up in-class time out consequences and so when the inevitable time arrives when a student or a group of students have gone too far they will need to be removed from the class. This requires some advanced planning. As mentioned above, whenever possible you should have met your immediate supervisor and at this time you should ask about the discipline policy but more importantly how you can remove very disruptive students.
More often than not you will be asked to send a note with them or a ‘trusted’ classmate explaining what has occurred so have the means to do this. Some casuals are reluctant to do this because they fear they will be harshly judged and will not be invited back. However, this approach indicates a level of professionalism which should impress the permanent staff.
Finally, stay positive, remember that:
Challenging behaviour is just that – challenging
Remind yourself you are a professional adult often dealing with needy children
Dealing with the problems one child presents skills you for future behaviour issues, this increases your ‘expertise’
If you treat these opportunities to do casual work as an opportunity to develop your teaching skills and you become identified as a reliable and effective teacher you will not remain a casual for long.
The principals of the company have had long careers in education with a combined total of eighty-one years service. After starting as mainstream teachers they both moved into careers in providing support for students with severe behaviours.
