Who's to Blame?

I'm only in my second year of teaching. It's rough. This year's group is horrible when it comes to behavior, and having an 18-day Christmas break (yes...18 days) seemed to have been retroactive to their behavior. Any semblance of control I had before break has yet to be regained. I'm starting to wonder if it's me....

At what point do you stop saying, "That teacher has to send kids to the office because they're godless heathens" (though that can be said about one class in my building), and start saying, "That teacher has to send her kids to the office every day because she can't seem to come up with an effective behavior management plan" (which I often feel is the case)? When do I take the blame off them and put it on me?

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Comment by suehellman on January 21, 2010 at 1:06pm: Jessica -- my first year was like that. I had a friend who had a fabulous first year and a rotten second one. We survive and we learn that lost ground is very hard to regain. Even after many years of teaching, every 4 years or so I got a "class from hell". But then I was doubly hard on myself because I was a seasoned vet and felt in my heart I should know how to make the class work but more than once I went home in tears. My only consolation was that another woman in my department admitted to having the same experiences. And strangely, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and found I had 6 weeks of 12 chemo treatments ahead of me, I had to bless all those horrible kids because I knew that if I survive those classes from hell, I could treat the 6 months ahead the same way in my mind and get through the treatments. Eventually, the semester or the year ends and they move on and you get a fresh start with a new group.

Sometimes it's the mix of students. Sometimes it's good plans that the teacher had that didn't work out. Sometimes it's just the teacher acting out of desperation and then the kids learn which buttons to push to get sent out because it becomes almost a game.

I think your effective management plan has to be something very simple like: "All people in this class will act respectfully at all times." You have to stick with it, model it, do a unit on respect and on how it feels to be disrespected (you included), to develop a signal anyone in the room can use when they are feeling disrespected (which the class will respond to by everyone stopping whatever they're doing immediately). This will change the dynamic and end the episode without having to point a finger at the perpetrator. Then you use this teachable moment to reinforce your class theme which prevents the class from lapsing back into whatever they were doing by redirecting the attention of the class to something productive. Eventually everyone will get that in your class acting in a manner that anyone finds disrespectful is not OK, and that judgment is according to the feelings of the receviers not according to the standards of the actors. It's up to people to know where others' sensitivities lie and to not tread on these. Everyone should feel free to use the signal if they hear or experience anything that is not 100% respectful. The perpetrator will not be embarrassed because we're all learning this lesson together, and then when you have the control back you can go on with the normal lesson. You may feel this will take too much time away from regular curriculum, but the uproar that's probably going on now is sucking up as much or more time with no positive outcome in sight.

Infuse everything that goes on with the theme of respect. Find it in current events. Put up bulletin boards. Create a blog. Find websites and pictures. Ask students for examples of how you are acting as a team to create a new way of being in your class. Help them see how far the class has come and celebrate the success and how much nicer it is to be there that it was before. Keep inviting students to walk a mile in the shoes of the disrespected -- just to get in touch with those feelings again. Get some help from the school counsellor with this as well.

As much as kids will "join into the fun" of a disorderly room, individually most really don't like it. They prefer order and boundaries and the lack of that makes them feel uncomfortable. But often as the moments arise, the reflex action of joining in takes over and they act in a way that actually makes them feel uncomfortable. Unbelievable as it may sound, they do prefer and orderly room where the teacher is in control. Keep that premise in mind.

Re"paragraph 2: It really doesn't matter who started it or whose shoulders the blame should sit on. There's only one person who can work out a way to fix it and that's you. Remember the Survivor motto: outwit, outplay, outlast. To that I"d add "out-think" because you're the thinker in this situation -- they're just acting out.

This is a little jumbled, but I trust you can pick out the threads. Stop the behaviour, disrupt the pattern, redirect the attention and energy, and when you have control back and feel the group is ready, resume the normal lesson.

PS -- rearranging the furniture will give you a brief edge when you start this new plan. It will put the kids outside their comfort zone for a short time which changes the dynamic a bit. Also -- use plenty of changes of pace --change up the activities before the students have time to finish everything. Move yourself around the room and teach from different places. 10-15 minute chunks for pacing and position changes mean they have to follow you, they have to work to keep up, and don't be afraid to do some good old-fashioned individual seat work (hands up please) for a while each day to have a little time of low voices and calm. (Again observe you pace change guideline). Warm ups and loosely structured activity that require the students be positively self directed are not great in a class that doesn't get that!