The Unteachables Podcast

#77: 3 common pieces of behaviour advice teachers get that do more harm than good

August 26, 2024 • Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 77

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In this episode, I’m diving into three common pieces of behaviour and classroom management advice that teachers are often given and why we need to stop offering them—at least in the way they’re typically presented.

These bits of advice are frequently thrown around without any meaningful support or practical steps, making them more harmful than helpful. I’ve heard them time and again from colleagues, experts, and social media, but the reality is that they’re often oversimplified and lacking real substance.

IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:

  • Why “make your lesson more engaging” can set teachers up to fail without the right strategies
  • The complexities of building student relationships and why it’s more than just “getting to know them”
  • The challenges of “not taking it personally” and how to actually protect your peace in tough situations
  • What advice we should be giving instead and how to better support teachers

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Speaker 1:

Saying don't take it personally should never, ever be used to invalidate your experience as a teacher. You are entitled to feel something emotional in response to things verbally being said to you that are upsetting or harsh or rude. Oh hi, teachers, welcome to Unteachables podcast Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the unteachables podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship, all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support. I've got your teacher friend. Let's do this. Hello, lovely teacher, welcome back to another episode of the Unteachables podcast. Thank you for joining me in my little patch of the podcasting world. You could be listening to a bunch of things right now, but you are choosing to listen to this voice. I really appreciate it and I hope that I trust that it's going to be full of little nuggets for you to take away.

Speaker 1:

On today's episode, I'm talking about something that might require a little bit of self-reflection for us and reframing for us, and it might be well-received by a lot of people, but it might not be well received by others and it's always a little bit nerve wracking putting out a post like this, a podcast like this. But I am talking about the three pieces of advice that are commonly given around behavior management that we need to stop giving to our fellow teachers. Well, at least stop giving this advice without actually supporting teachers around what that looks like in practice, what that means, what the barriers are to these things. And I just pick these three things because they are probably the most prevalent and you know, given pieces of advice in the teaching world Like they're constantly being thrown around in meetings constantly when we're brainstorming classroom management advice with teachers, these always pop up when teachers go and ask for support from their head teachers, from their mentors. This is the advice that they're being given and I know that because I speak to hundreds and hundreds of teachers through the work that I do and this pops up all of the time. I even see them come up on social media as a single post with no context around it by so-called culture management experts being used in a really tokenistic way. They got a lot of shares, they got a lot of comments. Some people get angry about it. Some people are fine with it. Like, it's just really important that I talk about this, because we say it as a throwaway thing, and I think we need to be thinking a little bit more, a bit deeper, about this advice and how we can actually support teachers, how I can actually support you to improve your classroom management, to improve behavior, because it takes so much more than this. So here are the three things that we need to stop saying to teachers that I want you to have stopped being said to you as throw away advice, and the first thing is you just need to make your lesson more engaging. When this advice is being told to us, what does it actually mean? It's vague, engaging. In what way Do you need to do a song and dance for your class every single lesson?

Speaker 1:

Some of the lessons that have been the best for me and my students have been pretty boring, to be very honest with you, and it's important to say that I've never been a teacher who was taught at a school with students who I get a hundred percent compliance with, just naturally, like I really have to work hard at getting students engaged and getting students on board and getting their buy-in, like I mean, I do this work so I probably don't have to say that to you. But some of the lessons that have been the best for me and my students in terms of classroom management, in terms of engagement, in terms of them making really good progress with their learning, haven't been exciting in terms of like, oh, really engaging, exciting. But they have been crafted with a lot of pedagogy, really explicitly, to make them highly structured, highly consistent. You know, lesson on lesson, they've got the same routines. The learning is visible, everything is there for them to follow. It is perfectly scaffolded. There's a map to their learning. It doesn't matter what the actual task was, but it definitely wasn't a game, it definitely wasn't something fun.

Speaker 1:

So if we're going to give teachers the advice of you know, just have to make your lesson more engaging so students will stay in the room and engage without giving them the absolute rainbow of what that actually looks like and other support they need to actually craft a lesson that strategically mitigates challenging behaviors, then we are absolutely setting teachers up for failure, and I've just heard it so much, especially towards the end of the year when things start to slip a little bit. And I've heard leaders say well, you have to make the lessons more engaging, you have to keep your students in the room Like somehow they're puppets on a string and we're able to control them with a lesson that's super, super engaging. It just doesn't work like that. So I would really love for people to reframe this particular piece of advice to reflect the incredible complexity of what it actually means to create a lesson that is not engaging in a traditional, like you know, let's make it fun and interesting for students, but actually how to get students engaged with their learning through all of that consistent, predictable, clear pedagogy that we can use in the lesson, so really reflecting the complexity and the nuance and the actual real skill that goes into it. Because we wouldn't be saying this comment as a throwaway comment. This, this advice, is something that's really like easy to like. You know, just go and make your lesson more engaging. We wouldn't be saying it as such a throwaway thing and something that's easy to attain. Uh, if we really were thinking about what it truly takes to create a lesson that mitigates challenging behaviors. Okay, I think I've gone on about that one enough.

Speaker 1:

The second piece of advice that I think needs to be said with a lot more intention and thought, rather than be used as like a throwaway thing, is to just build the relationship. Is building the relationship important? Yes, is it bread and butter of what we do here as teachers and our approach to teaching and behavior? Yes, however, it is not a magic bullet, not by a long shot. And when people say you need to build the relationships in your class in order to, you know, have a better classroom management approach, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah absolute barriers that there are in place to actually build a relationship with the students who are displaying the biggest behaviors that we see in our classrooms. Why is this? Well, the students who need that relationship the most, the students who, you know, we're telling people to build a relationship with, are often the students who have the biggest, toughest barriers and defenses against those relationships, and for good reason. And to simply give the advice of just building the relationship, it really does neglect to appreciate and acknowledge the sheer complexity in actually doing so on every level, on a neurobiological level, on all the levels with this student, it takes a lot more and there are a bunch of barriers that might be in place for that student developing a relationship with you.

Speaker 1:

We can offer relationships and safety for that student, but that doesn't mean they're going to be able to accept that. For example, if they've got a disorganized attachment when the people in their lives who should have been a source of safety and comfort and love ended up being a source of fear, that has developed their internal working model that people aren't safe. So think about how that impacts the child. They need to resist the relationship with us because it's how they're surviving. And even if that student wants to build a relationship with you, even if they are trying to form a positive relationship, that student's brain could simultaneously be saying nope, not safe.

Speaker 1:

We know what happens when we trust people, when we trust adults, when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we get hurt. Another barrier could be that you represent something for them. You're an adult, you're in a position of authority. Think about some of the young people that you teach, who are more vulnerable. Where have authority let them down before? Maybe child protective services who have intervened rightly so but broken up their family. Maybe police, maybe other teachers or people in education who have made them feel useless or bad or unworthy. You aren't just you, and as lovely as you are I know you are, you're listening to this podcast as kind as you are, you may still represent something for them and their brains are calling the shots and they're not going to trust you and another barrier could be just time and consistency. Maybe you developing a relationship with them is work, but it's happening at a slow pace because sometimes that's what's needed for some of our students.

Speaker 1:

So to put out the advice that we just need to build the relationship and if we build a relationship with these students as a magic bullet that's going to support us to then teach them in the class. It is not taking into consideration the fact that this student is a very complex individual who has had experiences that we have no control over and we don't necessarily control the relationships that we form with our students. We can control what we put out there to them. We can control how safe we are as people. We can control how kind we are, how compassionate we are. We can control how kind we are, how compassionate we are. We can control how consistent we are, but when that student comes face to face with us, they don't accept that. That's not. That's not something we can control. We can't control what's happened to them. We can't control their brains.

Speaker 1:

So I think that when we say to teachers to build a relationship, when someone is saying that to you, it needs to be said with a lot more care and a lot more consideration for the fact that we aren't working with students who are just going to be able to, you know, immediately, accept that and immediately come on board with us and trust us and then be able to sit in our classroom settled and ready to learn. It just is not the reality for a lot of students we teach and it certainly isn't the reality for all 30 of the students that we have in our classroom. So I think that's yeah, it needs to be said with a lot more care and consideration for the teacher. It can also feel quite blame and shame for teachers, because teachers are trying, like you are trying, to build the relationships in your classroom and again, it doesn't mean that students are going to accept that. It's just the reality of it.

Speaker 1:

The third and last piece of advice that I would like to talk about, that really is shouldn't be said to teachers, unless we're reflecting how complex this actually is or giving a little bit more support around it is. Don't take it personally. This is said all of the time and I'm sure you've heard this being said, you know. Don't take it personally. It isn't about you. Yes, that is true, but if you've ever been on the receiving end of some incredibly personal and harsh and nasty student comments, you know that it's not something that's really easy just to click our fingers and do okay, I'm not taking it personally anymore. I'm just going to be regulated and calm and I'm going to teach this lesson and it's all fine. So, much easier said than done.

Speaker 1:

But just like the other two pieces of advice, it is still important. It is still important for us to embody the fact that we can't take these things personally, because when we do depersonalize things, it allows us to be better regulated. It allows us to approach behaviors from a place of calm and consideration and compassion. So we can definitely try to depersonalize things in our classroom. But I'm telling you now, even with a lot of experience myself with managing these things, I still find it incredibly tough. Of course we do when we're standing in a classroom and you know all we're trying to do is teach a lesson, and we care about our students and we want the best for them, and in the middle of a lesson we've got students saying something to us or you know your lessons crap, or this is boring, or whatever it is that students are saying to you. Of course, that's going to be really off-putting and dysregulating and it's going to make us feel like crap. It's just inevitable. We're human beings, so it is really tough. So the first thing I want to say is that, even though the advice comes like in terms of like the core of what the advice means, I know that it's really true and we do need to try to depersonalize things.

Speaker 1:

Saying don't take it personally should never, ever, be used to invalidate your experience as a teacher. You are entitled to feel something emotional in response to things verbally being said to you that are upsetting or harsh or rude. Emotional in response to things verbally being said to you that are upsetting or harsh or rude. This is about acknowledging that, whilst also acknowledging the fact that we need to be the teacher and the adult in the room and remain regulated, we can acknowledge both of those things at once. So just say, when teachers come to me in my role like obviously I'm not teaching at the moment because I'm in between countries, but in my role as a senior leader.

Speaker 1:

If a teacher would come to me and say this student's saying X, y and Z and I can see that they've taken that personally and I can see that they're upset about that Me saying don't take it personally, you need to think about X, y and Z, is not going to support that teacher in the moment. I think that, just like we validate the experiences and the feelings of our students, we too need that for ourselves, whether it's us having the capacity to remind ourselves of those things and talk to ourselves with compassion, or to have a leader or a colleague or anybody else talk through those things with us. So I would say I can see that you're really upset by that. Like you know, that must have been really difficult to hear. Do you want to talk to me a little bit more about that? And then I'll go on to say, okay, that student's experiencing X, y and Z and because of that, the comments that they said to you might have a root cause of this. It's not about your lesson being crap.

Speaker 1:

So I think it's really important for us, if we're giving the advice to teachers to come from a place of compassion first and validating their experiences first, if we're trying to coach them through these things, I really do think the advice of don't take it personally needs to be said, with us treading quite carefully and making sure that with our fellow teachers, we're, you know, supporting them, because if we can't support our teachers, we can't support our students in the way that we need to support them. One more thing I want to say about this piece of advice is that our ability to depersonalize things with our students actually comes from our ability to regulate and our ability to recognize and understand behavior as a whole. So if we are just telling teachers to depersonalize the behaviors that we see in front of us without actually giving them strategies and skills and the environment to regulate, to be able to understand the behaviors that are in front of us, having strategies to be able to do that Because even though don't take it personally is really good advice sometimes for teachers to be able to kind of remember oh, that's right, like there's something else happening in front of me and I need to regulate and all the rest of it you need those skills first. Yes, it's so much more about what's happening underneath the surface, and we need to remember that we need to be able to regulate. But this we just need to acknowledge that that's a very hard thing to do and comes with time, and it comes with the knowledge and it comes with the support from everybody around us. Just as much as you know, we're in front of our students and they're humans and they have needs and feelings. So are teachers, so are you. And to have to continue working through any kind of verbal abuse or comments that are nasty or upsetting, it's just so challenging. And you know, something no one understands unless they're teachers, and it's something very unique to teaching, where we have to be in front of those students and we have to work through those comments as they come up, rather than us having support for every single thing that happens.

Speaker 1:

So what advice should we be giving to teachers instead? By all means, give those three pieces of advice. Tell them to build a relationship. Tell them that you know not to take it personally. Tell them that an engaging lesson is going to support students to. You know, have more regulated behaviors. But the next time that you give this advice, or somebody gives this advice to you, or whatever it is, it needs to be presented in a way that reflects how incredibly nuanced it is. It needs to be done with the support around it that it deserves. Otherwise it can be very detrimental to the well-being of teachers who are desperately searching for support and answers, desperately needing more support, deserving more support, but then made to feel like it's somehow their fault. They're taking it too personally, they're not trying hard enough with the relationships, their lessons suck, they're not engaging enough. Those are the messages. I know you're not, if you are giving this advice to teachers. I know that you're not saying that and I completely understand the why behind every piece of advice that I've just discussed. But we need to make teachers feel like less that it's their fault and more about the skills that they can develop, more about the support that they need, more about the strategies that they can implement, more about the actual things that they can develop in their practice to make real change with these young people in front of them.

Speaker 1:

Rant over I hope that wasn't too ranty.

Speaker 1:

I just really needed to address this, because it's things that pop up all the time and I've seen it in every facet of my work, whether I'm a leader or a teacher, or you know, in university, or you know the work that I do.

Speaker 1:

Now I'm seeing it all the time popping up and I just think that we need to be more strategic, and you know that teachers like we're lacking so much support around classroom management. It's not a given that we get that. So if we are going to have the capacity to provide support and advice for teachers, we need to be doing so in a way that is meaningful and is going to actually support teachers to move the needles in their classroom and to actually feel empowered and, you know, confident walking into their classrooms and dealing with the behaviors that are popping up, rather than making them feel like there's just something they're missing or they're not doing a good enough job. Okay, that is it for today and I hope that that was in some way validating. I don't know. Let me know, you can always pop me an email. Okay, fabulous teacher, I hope everything is going all good on your end and I will see you next week at the same time in the same place.

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Claire English

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