What are you afraid of?
[The updated version of this blog can be found here]
Get a system for easily recording warnings or strikes,
visible to all students
Imagine it’s your second week, day one, period 4. You’ve just had a horrendous Period 2 lesson
with Year 10, and now it’s time for Year 11.
One lad refuses to enter the classroom, before later barrelling in with
another boy draped over his shoulders.
They run around, completely ignoring you… before heading off out the
classroom again! You chase after them to
recover the pupil supposed to be in your room, only to find yourself
confronting a tall student who looks like he’s getting ready to hit you, an
event possibly prevented only by another teacher’s intervening. By the time you get back to your room, another
male pupil who, up til now has spent your lessons sleeping, has suddenly
awoken, taken your chair and proceeded to wheel himself around the
classroom! You ignore it for a time…
because you’ve no idea what to do.
Eventually you pluck up the courage and tell him to get off the
chair. Ah yes, he’s ignoring you. Then he’s telling you he won’t get off the
chair. You put your foot on the base to
prevent him wheeling any further, and his response is to sulkily get off and
inform you that you’re gay. With that,
you send him out the room, and lo, he actually goes (maybe you can get them to
do what you say after all…). You take
him a textbook to work from, and by the time you get back the whole class is
giggling because one of the girls (you suspect… but can’t prove) has written
‘faget’ up on the board. You rub it off,
and try to continue with the lesson.
Day two, what do
you do?
1). Get people to help out.
They think they can do what they like, because they
can. They think they can bully you
because you’re soft, and you’re alone, and there’s 30 of them. The second they start to realise you’re
talking to their tutors, their heads of year, their pastoral assistants, their
head of maths, and the moment they see some of those people standing with you
in the classroom, suddenly they realise you’re not soft, and you’re not
alone. You still do most the talking,
you don’t hide behind them; they’re just there to remind the kids that you’ve
got your gang too.
2). Get a system to lean on.
See Joe’s post here for the behaviour system I
adapted. The rewards and sanctions don’t matter, make them up
(and then you’ll change them when it doesn’t work). What matters is when faced a belligerent
child kicking their feet up at the back, munching Pringles, with a “What are
you gonna do about it?” attitude, is your response going to be a meek nothing,
or a shouting match you’ve already lost, or are you going to calmly walk to the
board and add a strike by their name, and continue to do so until the Pringles
are away, or they’re either placed in detention or removed from your room (or
both). It’s about having some kind of
action you can take, any action, without having to go straight to sanctions or
losing your cool.