Teacher Leadership and Behaviour Management

Bill Rogers

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN:
  9780761940203
  9780761940197
• eBook ISBN:
  9781446237472
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In framing this book, Bill Rogers discusses `what changes? and `what stays the same? in teacher leadership and behaviour. Original chapters from well-known writers and practitioners set out current approaches in behaviour leadership, in terms of practical concerns about behaviour management and discipline. The emphasis on teacher leadership is intentional, as the authors believe that the kind of teacher leadership in a school significantly affects the effectiveness and humanity of discipline and management.

All the contributors have a teaching background and all are directly involved with schools, in research and consultancy. Bill Rogers works in classrooms with teachers, as a coach/mentor. Each chapter demonstrates a commitment to support classroom teachers with practical action research in areas such as:

- Teacher leadership

- Effective teaching

- Colleague support

- Discipline and behaviour management

- Working with students who show emotional-behavioural disorders.

This book will be useful to teachers and other education professionals interested in behaviour management, discipline and colleague support issues.

1

What changes and what stays the same in behaviour management?

Dr Bill Rogers

It sounds trite to say that ‘schools change and behaviour management must change with it’ – there are certainly many books that have that motif somewhere in their text.

We are experiencing the ‘IT revolution’; computers will revolutionise the classroom, we are constantly told. Even if we do use computers widely we still have to BUTIC as I’ve discussed with many students – ‘Boot up the internal computer’. The first computer created was the ‘computer’ that conceived and designed and made the computer. Of course it’s one thing to ‘boot it up’ it’s another to STBS (surf the brain space) – individually and collectively. Woe betide us if we ever conceive of education (in schools) as merely a ‘log on’ to a physical computer and then get the information ‘on-line’ as if that is all that ‘education’ (as knowledge) is about. Schools are also communities – local learning communities. Children do not merely learn content off a screen, they learn in relationship to others: their peers; their teachers and their local community. Computers can tap into a ‘world wide graffiti board’ as well as a ‘world wide web’ but students will need teachers (on the ground) to enable the contextualisation of information and learning. As Dewey (1897) has said, ‘all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness...’ (p77).¹

Society has changed significantly since post-war Britain when I was white, skinny, freckled, knobbly-kneed (in ‘daggy’ shorts and cap) and sometimes scared of some of my teachers who smacked, hit and caned me and sometimes pulled my ear (ouch!). No doubt they thought they were doing ‘good discipline’.

Good teachers then – as now – rarely needed to use corporal punishment; they eschewed calculated anxiety or fear as a ‘technique’; they avoided public embarrassment and shaming as a ‘device’; they made an effort to keep the dignity – at least the respect – of the individual intact. I remember such teachers with gratitude and affection.

Schools – thankfully – are generally happier places these days for teachers and students. Class sizes are smaller (they need to be!); heaters generally work; some schools even have air conditioners.

TV was a tiny black and white screen just four decades ago; essays were handwritten (even at university); the teacher was almost always ‘revered’ and addressed as ‘Sir’ or ‘Miss’. If I ‘talked’ in class it was very ‘serious’, if I was late for no good reason it was ‘serious’, if I answered back it was a major crime. We were – almost universally – biddable. The hierarchies were well established – you ‘did as you were told’. There are teachers who still pine for those halcyon days. Although I did have a teacher we called ‘the fat Welsh git’ (no offence to the Welsh you understand) who pushed me too far. I was talking in class (at high school aged 14%). He walked across to my desk and jabbed his index finger roughly in my shoulder – ‘Listen Rogers – were you brought up or dragged up!’ Well – no one (even a teacher) was going to insult my progeny. I stood up and, heart thumping, said ‘It’s none of your bloody business!’ and walked out to stunned silence (both teacher and class). As I walked past the last row some of my classmates looked up and engaged an eye-contact that said, ‘Thanks for being our Trojan Horse...’ I walked into town, got a delicious cream bun and tea (to calm my nerves) and got a bus home. He never pulled that stunt again. I think – even in 1961 – he realised he might have pushed it a bit too far.

The worm had turned. I mostly got ‘in trouble’ or ‘had detentions’, or ‘got the cane’ for answering back and I only ‘answered back’ when I thought the teacher was unjust, petty or pathetically trivial (at least in my adolescent perception). Even in primary school I had the ruler across the knuckles and on one occasion had to wear a ‘dunce’s hat’.² In schools today children still ‘talk in class’, ‘talk out of turn’, avoid tasks or refuse tasks and answer back and they certainly still bully their peers.

Whenever a group of students meets with their teachers some aspects of behaviour management and discipline should not change. When you get 25–30 children in a small room, with the widest variation in personality, temperament and ability, there are natural energies at work that can significantly affect group dynamics and productive teaching and learning. Those energies are present in behaviours that are distracting, attention-seeking, disruptive or (at times) seriously disturbing. All teachers, at all times, in all contexts have needed to address the dynamics of teaching and learning and management and discipline as they interact with group dynamics. In this sense there is ‘nothing new under the sun’. While society has changed, some features of children’s behaviour – particularly in school settings – have not changed. It is my view, my belief, that the discipline and behaviour management of a school community should be based on core values and practices that do not change (despite social and technological changes and new social mores). A teacher – or a community of teachers – never disciplines in a value vacuum. At some stage teachers need to reflect on the values and aims of behaviour management and discipline whether it is addressing typical behaviours such as ‘calling out’, ‘butting in’, task-avoidance, overly loud communication or whether it is issues such as verbal or physical aggression, bullying or substance abuse.

Whenever we ‘manage’ student behaviour we communicate certain values: Do we keep the fundamental dignity, and even respect, of the individual in mind? (That would mean – one hopes – that we would avoid sarcasm, ‘cheap-shots’, put-downs of any kind when we discipline.) Do we value, and aim for, behaviour ownership when we discipline? A cursory example here may illustrate. When a child has an object d’art that interferes with instructional or on-task learning some teachers will walk over to the student’s desk and merely take (or snatch) the cards, the mini skateboard, the toy, the secreted Walkman. Other teachers will seek to give some ‘behaviour ownership’ back to the student: e.g. ‘Paul – you’ve got a mini skateboard on your table...’ (sometimes an ‘incidental direction’ is itself enough for some students. The teacher ‘describes’ what the student is doing that is distracting, leaving the ‘cognitive shortfall’ to the student – the description can act as an incidental direction. Younger children would need a specific direction or reminder about behaviour or rule.) The teacher may then extend the ‘description’ to a ‘directed choice’: ‘want you to put it in your locker tray (or bag) or on my table – thanks.’ (I’ve never had a student yet put a distracting object on my desk...as an ‘option’.) You can imagine what will probably happen if a teacher over-vigilantly snatches a high school student’s secreted Walkman, key ring or mobile phone: ‘Hey give my * * * * Walkman back; give it back, you can’t take that!’ A small discipline issue now becomes a major issue: ‘will have it now thank you!’ ‘No way – no way known’ (the student values his Walkman). ‘Right! (says the teacher) out – go on, you get out of my classroom...!’

Of course any ‘discipline language’ depends on factors such as what the teacher has established with the class group in terms of shared rights and responsibilities, core routines and rules for the fair, smooth running of the classroom; the teacher’s characteristic tone and manner when they discipline (as above); how they follow-up with students beyond the more public setting and (most of all) the kind of relationship the teacher has built with the class group and its individuals.

CORE ‘PREFERRED’ PRACTICES OF DISCIPLINE

The following practices of management and discipline have their philosophical and moral genesis in the values discussed earlier; their ‘utility’ is not separate from their purpose. Teachers need to ask on what basis do they characteristically discipline in terms of what they believe, say, do. A teacher’s practice needs to be based in principle as well as pragmatism. In those schools that seek to develop a whole-school approach to behaviour management and discipline, staff critically, and professionally, reflect on and appraise their policy and practice in light of their espoused values. The basis for behaviour management and discipline – in terms of school-wide teacher management and discipline behaviour – are here, discussed in terms of preferred practices. The term ‘preferred’ is not accidental; the things that really matter in education cannot really be mandated as if by fiat. In this sense our preferred practice is based on what we value.

Professional collaboration, shared professional reflection and practice based in colleague support and on-going professional development need to characterise these practices, particularly those that address the discipline behaviour of teachers. These practices reflect unchanging features of good discipline. The broad evaluative qualifier ‘good’ is not based in mere utility but in the values and purposes on which such discipline is based.

1 The aims of discipline

All management and discipline practice is a teacher’s best efforts (bad day notwithstanding) to enable the individual and the classroom group to:

• take ownership of and accountability for their behaviour; to enable students to develop self-discipline in relationship to others.
• respect the rights of others in their classroom group/s, and across the school; the non-negotiable rights, in this sense, are the ‘right to feel safe’, the ‘right to respect and fair treatment’ and (obviously) the ‘right to learn’ (within one’s ability, without undue or unfair distraction from others, with teachers who reasonably seek to cater for individual differences and needs).
• build workable relationships between teacher and students.

In seeking to support the aim of discipline that enables the conscious respecting of others’ rights, teachers often develop whole-class student behaviour agreements that specifically address core rights and responsibilities (Rogers 1997 and 2000). Each grade teacher (at primary level) or tutor teacher (at secondary level) will address such fundamental responsibilities such as respect for person and property expressed in basic civility and manners, such as ‘please’, ‘thanks’, first name (rather than ‘him, ‘her’, ‘she’, ‘he’), ‘ask before borrowing’, ‘excuse me’, etc.; teaching basic educational and social considerations such as ‘partner-voice’ (Robertson and Rogers, 1998, 2000) and ‘co-operative talk’ during class learning time, how to fairly gain teacher assistance time during on-task learning, etc. Thoughtful routines and rules enable the smooth running of a busy, complex, learning community like a classroom. Teaching routine, and ‘making routine routine’ (Rogers, 1995) gives direction, focus and security to learning and social interaction.

2 Student behaviour agreements

The rights noted earlier are meaningful only in terms of their responsibilities. Teachers need to discuss these rights and responsibilities with their class groups in the establishment phase of the year (Rogers, 1998, 2000). A student behaviour agreement discussed with the class group forms a basis for any behaviour management generally – and discipline in particular – as it outlines rights and responsibilities, rules and consequences and a commitment to support students in their learning and responsible behaviour.

Such a student behaviour agreement is published within the first three weeks of the school year and a copy sent home to parent(s) with a supporting letter from the headteacher. Each class thus communicates the whole-school emphasis on behaviour, learning and positive discipline in a document that is classroom-based and classroom-focused, in terms of language, understanding and development. A photo of the grade class – with their teacher – can give a positive contextual framework between home and school (see Rogers, 1997 and 2000).

3 The practice of discipline

When engaged in any management and discipline teachers will – wherever possible – avoid any unnecessary confrontation with students. This preferred practice will exclude any intentional, easy, use of put-downs, ‘cheap-shots’, public shaming, embarrassment or sarcasm (tempting as it might be at times!). Humour (the bon-mot, repartee, irony, even farce) will often defuse tension, ease anxiety and reframe stressful reality. Sarcasm, and malicious humour is the pathetically easy power-trip of some teachers and is always counter-productive to co-operative discipline.

A student comes late to class and a teacher asks him why he is late. Apart from the unnecessary and unhelpful interrogative (‘why?’), if the teacher’s tone is overly, or unnecessarily, confrontational it can lead to adverse outcomes.

It is the second occasion in this high school class that the student has arrived late. The teacher is engaged in whole-class teaching:

T:	‘Why are you late?!’ (It often doesn’t matter – at this point in a lesson – why the student is late.)
S:	(A little ‘cocky’; h...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 What changes and what stays the same in behaviour management?
• 2 The Boss, the Manager and the Leader: approaches to dealing with disruption
• 3 A humanistic view of discipline
• 4 The Balance Model: minimalism in behaviour management
• 5 So it’s your fault! Defining the responsibilities of teachers, parents and students
• 6 As chaotic as a box of frogs? Teaching learners who experience emotional and behavioural difficulties
• 7 Current trends in the management of emotional and behavioural difficulties
• 8 The ADHD dilemma: understanding and managing the condition
• 9 Technology and behaviour management: identifying strategic intents – understanding and creating new environments
• 10 Colleague support: building a supportive ecology in schools
• Conclusion
• Index