The Unteachables Podcast

#80: The low-down on low-level behaviours: Why they are so tricky and why the advice around them sucks!

September 16, 2024 • Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 80

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In today’s episode, I’m diving deep into the frustration of low-level behaviours in the classroom—why they are so tricky to handle and why the advice out there often falls flat. 

This is episode 1 of a big focus on low-level behaviours this month, so be sure to follow along for the rest if this is a big challenge for you in your practice!

IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:

  • My personal experiences with low-level behaviours and why I’m so passionate about this topic - hellooooo shaking our confidence and fuelling feelings of hopelessness!
  • The flawed advice (that's putting it kindly) teachers often receive around handling low-level disruptions and why it doesn't work. After all, we can't make 30 phone calls a day, and we are TRYING to engage them!
  • What actually defines a low-level behaviour and why these behaviours fall into a “grey area.”
  • What you can do differently to break the cycle of frustration and regain control in your classroom.

By the end of this episode, you’ll have a clearer understanding of why low-level behaviors are so hard to tackle and a few actionable insights to start making a real change in your classroom.

Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!

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Speaker 1:

Oh, hi teachers, Welcome to Unteachable's 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 Unteachable's 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, wonderful teachers, welcome back to the Unteachables podcast.

Speaker 1:

It is so lovely to have you join me again and on today's episode I am going to be giving you just a bit of a lowdown on low-level behaviors, talking about why they're so tricky. You know why they're so hard to crack and, most importantly, why the advice around them and why the support around them sucks so bad. And I'm probably going to get a little bit heated in today's episode, as dorky as that sounds, because low-level behaviors get me fired up and it's not because the low-level behaviors themselves are so tricky. You know that is obviously the case as well, and if you asked me 10 years ago, I'd probably say they get me fired up for a totally different reason. But they get me fired up now because nobody is talking about the stuff that actually moves the needle. Nobody is giving teachers the support that they need around low-level behaviors to actually feel empowered and make changes and I'll talk about it in a little bit. But the advice is actually given is adding things to teachers' plates rather than taking it away. So I just feel like the way we're approaching low-level behaviors is something that is actually like fueling all of these issues around burnout and you know teaching, dissatisfaction in the job and just so many things. Right, and I'll get into all of that.

Speaker 1:

But before I even chat about low-level behaviors themselves and I'm going to slow myself down saying low-level behaviors because last episode when I said it I was going, so I listened to the episode back I'm like, wow, do they even know what I'm saying? Low level behaviors. I just wanted to say, especially if this is the first time you're listening to the unteachables podcast and you know nothing about me, I really want you to know that I'm not talking about this stuff from a place of oh, I've studied it, I mentor people around it, I run workshops on it, so I get it. No, I am passionate about low-level behaviors in particular because I have lived it. It is my lived experience. And I don't think, unless you are in front of those 30 students not having them listening to you for 60 minutes and them speaking over you and you trying to get the attention of the class and you constantly trying to put out spot fires unless you have done that day in, day out, lesson after lesson, you just can't understand it. And I'm not saying anything against people who do training with teachers around things that they're experts in because they've studied it. Um, I'm not saying anything negative about that necessarily. I am just saying that, when it comes to low level behaviors, I just don't think you're in any position to talk about them unless you understand the feelings around them.

Speaker 1:

And they're particularly challenging because of how chronic, consistent and disempowering they feel. They made me feel like I wasn't even cut out to be a teacher. Day after day after day. It would be an uphill battle. I wouldn't be able to perform, I wouldn't be able to get results, I wouldn't be able to control my class in the way I needed them to get results. They're the kind of things that were constantly running through my mind. So what's the point in being a teacher if I can't do any of those things that I'm here to do? Because all that would happen is I'd go in my room and, despite my best efforts and my best intentions and all of those things and my best intentions and all of those things, I had no chance of getting on top of them and it kind of backed me into a wall and forced me to become a teacher and embody a teaching persona that really didn't align with my personality or my values, because that's what I was told to do by my mentors.

Speaker 1:

I was told to be stricter, harsher, don't smile in the first term or whatever, but I tried that. I tried to be stricter. I tried to go down that route of writing names on the board, endless minutes going up on the board until there were no more minutes to write up, because it actually exceeded the amount that we had for break time. You know, I'd write names up on the board with big crosses next to it, and that didn't help much either, because some of them just found it really funny, like it was a bit of a game. You know how many crosses can I get, showing off in front of their friends having a laugh, enjoying my over the top reactions to those low level behaviors.

Speaker 1:

Because I felt so frantic so I did approach them in ways that probably wasn't helpful. I was erratic. I was barely breathing. I was holding my breath for the whole 60 minutes of the lesson. I'd flap around from one student to the next, just desperate and just that. That. My energy was pure desperation of trying to get through the content. It really was, and I was desperately trying to teach them and get through that lesson, despite the fact that I was teaching over the noise, and teaching over the noise is so counterproductive I'd be teaching to no one. So it really was the most ineffective way possible to be approaching these behaviors.

Speaker 1:

But I have observed hundreds and hundreds of lessons in my career and this is how teachers deal with low-level behaviors because there's nothing else, there's no other support. When you have no support around these things, what are you supposed to do? All you have is what you know and what you're told. I felt disempowered, I felt out of control. I felt this sense of franticism and I started to really genuinely and I hate to say it, but I resented my students.

Speaker 1:

I cried in my car often and I said it before, but if I was going to leave teaching in those early days, it was probably like low level behaviors were. The one thing I probably would have said was the reason why? Because I feel like these behaviors and how they make us feel just bleed into our actual teaching practice. They destabilize us, they dysregulate us and they make us feel so uncertain about our own abilities, and that really does perpetuate the cycle of low-level behaviors even more. So it's absolutely no surprise to me whatsoever that in this work, the one thing that teachers come to me for support around the most is low level behaviors. There are so many teachers just like you, if you're listening and this resonates at all that are disillusioned and disempowered and at the end of their tether.

Speaker 1:

And this is where I get onto a bit of a passionate rant about things, and maybe you've experienced it too, and if you have, please feel free to send me an email, hit me up on Instagram, whatever you want to do. But what happens is teachers seek support and they get advice such as this they get told to call home. I'm sorry, if I was to make calls home for every single student who was displaying a low level behavior, that was stopping me from teaching. I would be calling the parents of every single student for starters, but it would add hours of work to my plate. The next piece of advice that I used to get, and that a lot of teachers do get, is to document all of those micro moments to then paint a picture of what is happening in the class and, you know, add to that that narrative. But if you were to document every instance of low-level behaviors, or even the ones that were serious enough or, you know, disruptive enough for us to stop and wait, it would be so unrealistic because again, it would add hours and hours of work onto our plate.

Speaker 1:

And teachers do this. I know you're out there doing this. If you're listening, you're like, yes, I sit there at the computer, bloody documenting. You know Johnny throwing that pen across the room, or Ben, you know, whacking his friend. There's so many things that we're documenting on a day-to-day basis when it comes to low-level behaviors.

Speaker 1:

This is not an effective way to reduce the behaviors. And of course there are things you have to document. I'm not saying that, by the way, but when it comes to low-level behaviors, that's not going to stop them in their tracks. We're told to speak to the student and build that relationship. Yes, again, of course building the relationship is important and all of those things, but if you were to speak to every single student, one-to-one, about the behaviors that they're exhibiting in the room and their low-level behaviors, you are going to be speaking to them for hours as not realistic. Again, when they say, build the relationship, you're already trying to do that. So that advice is just so I don't know, like short-sighted. When we're told to build a relationship and we go for support around low-level behaviors, but we're already doing that, it's even more disempowering and makes us feel like, oh okay, well, I guess I'm just not building a strong enough relationship, like there's something wrong with what I'm doing here, not building strong enough relationship, like there's something wrong with what I'm doing here. That is not the case. Please don't feel that way.

Speaker 1:

If you are dealing with low level behaviors in a classroom, you could definitely have incredible relationships with your students, and I talk about it in my book. Actually, one of the classes that I struggled the most with with low level behaviors, before all of these strategies that I learned that that was the class that I had the strongest bond with. Those were the students, and I will get onto it in another episode why that class in particular was the toughest for me to be able to crack with low level behaviors, and it was because I had the best relationships with them. So just keep that in the back of your mind. And another piece of advice that we get is to just try to engage the students more. When, again, just like trying to build a relationship, you're trying to do that, you're doing all of the things that you can do in that, in that kind of realm.

Speaker 1:

So when people give that advice to us around low level behaviors, it makes us think hang on a second. I'm trying to do that. Am I not engaging my class enough? That is also not the number one solution for dealing with low level behaviors. So we're left feeling like, oh, it's my fault, I'm not a strong enough teacher, I don't have the right skills for this. Or you're left trying to use all of these strategies and trying to teach the lesson.

Speaker 1:

But you're doing all of these things but you're still putting out spot fires and you're still constantly battling disruptions, you're still constantly being spoken over and it's just not realistic to expect teachers to address low level behaviors in the same way they would address regular I don't know how to say it not regular behaviors but, like you know, really clear instances of behavior, challenges that you would call home about, that you would speak to the student about that you would go down that route about. But if you need to get to that point where you understand what those behaviors are, to address them, you need to weed out all of the low-level behaviors first. You need to reduce all of those first so you can actually clearly see what you need to address. So, but what is different about these? What is the distinction between a big behavior that we need to address in the way that I've just described, like calling home or documenting or speaking to the student, all of those things?

Speaker 1:

The low-level behaviors like the things like calling out, the talking over you, the disengagement, the off-task behavior, the walking around the room, that whole class hum. They kind of sit in this gray area where they're frustrating and blatant and serious enough to completely derail a lesson, but they're not quite serious enough or severe enough to warrant that big response or you can't quite quantify them. There are just so many nuances, so many micro moments of low level behaviors in a classroom and so many key players that add to that vibe, that culture, that experience that again you'd just be writing and responding all day. And that's why low-level disruptions are different than any other behaviors, because the advice that we're given doesn't work for them and they're totally reasonable things to do for other behaviors, but it's not reasonable to do for low-level behaviors in the room and when we speak about them, when we're given support around them, it's always around those behaviors that are presenting. But the thing is you can't treat them by giving them a consequence. You can't overcome these barriers by doing something about the behavior. You can try, but you'll spend your whole lesson writing names up on the board for wishy-washy, subjective reasons. You'll be calling out names and nagging all of the strategies that I was using that were making low-level behaviors worse and just say your head teacher does, come in and read your students the right act. You might have success for a day. If you're lucky, you might have success for a week, but it won't be long before things slip back. So we end up doing the things mentioned before and they add to our place but they don't actually address the behaviors.

Speaker 1:

If, instead, we want to address them, if we want to mitigate them, if we want to reduce them, we need to break the cycle. We need to feel more empowered, we need to do things differently. We need to take control of the things that we can control. What does that look like? What does it look like to do things differently? I don't think I took a breath for the last 10 minutes. Things truly are different for me now, thankfully, but it took a very long journey to get here.

Speaker 1:

And when I walk into my classroom now, the way that I respond to low-level behaviors, the way that I see low-level behaviors, the way that I can reduce them, the way that I can address them, is completely different than what I would do before. And I had to start by realizing that the approach that I was using, the approach that everybody was teaching, was the antithesis of what I needed to be doing. To change things. I had to relearn strategies that totally changed what low-level behaviors meant in my mind. I had to have the confidence to block out the noise from mentors and leaders who kept telling the staff group that they had to document the behavior, to make more calls to have more conversations when we were really drowning in low-level behaviors. I'd been there, I'd done that, I was trying, I was doing that for a whole year, two years and I was on the brink of burnout from all of the extra work that had no impact on the classroom climate.

Speaker 1:

What I had to do was I had to craft my teaching presence and understand the inextricable link between low-level disruptions and absolutely every single thing that I was bringing into that room everything that I was bringing into the room but more on that to come, because that is a big old subject and that requires a few more episodes to even start to scratch that surface. So that's why I will be focusing on this particular subject over the next month. Here on the podcast, I'll be talking about all things low-level disruptions and behaviors. I'll be talking about all things crafting a teaching presence, using our non-verbals, some of the barriers that are in place for us, as certain types of teachers, to actually addressing low-level behaviors, what works, what doesn't work all of the things about low-level behaviors I will be talking about in the next coming month. All of the things about low-level behaviors I will be talking about in the next coming month.

Speaker 1:

So, teachers, please, if you need support with this, if you, like I was, are feeling helpless and hopeless and disempowered and just at the end of your tether and you know, just feeling like you can't get anywhere or feeling like you don't have the right support, the right information, the right strategies, make sure you're going over and clicking that follow button on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever else you listen to podcasts, so over the next month, you automatically have access to these episodes and this support, because it's not only going to give you a few actionable strategies that you can use and I promise I will give you some of those on the podcast but it will also give you the validation and the support that all of us need from time to time. Because I know that when you're dealing with a lot of low level behaviors and disruptions, it can make you feel so alone in that room. It can make you feel like you're just underwater and screaming and not able to break through that surface. I completely understand how that feels. It makes you feel like you want to scream into a void, but you are not alone. But, wonderful, teacher, if you are really in the thick of it and you do know already that you need that extra level of support. I've also just opened enrollments again to my low level behavior bootcamp and, oh my gosh, am I excited to welcome you in and be able to really help you transform these behaviors, because the strategies that I speak about, they truly are a piece of magic, and they aren't even words. For me, that's just one of the words that pops up time after time in the testimonials from teachers that have joined me that it is magic. It's like a little magic wand that can really help us to get on top of these things.

Speaker 1:

Teachers who, like me and maybe you, felt all of those things and they felt hopeless too, and they also needed to do something to break that cycle. And the best part is that all of these strategies are non-verbal, non-confrontational and in complete alignment with our values and are totally in our control. It's something that we can do to immediately shift things. I give you the roadmaps to do that. It's not some big plan that we need to implement over months and months. This is something that you can walk into your classroom tomorrow after watching these training sessions and do and see immediate results. And I know that because these are the strategies that it was like for me walking into a classroom and flicking a switch, and in one of the episodes to come I will talk about one of the most challenging classes that I had, but were also my favorite class, and how I, like, night and day, shifted things with them with these strategies, and I'm so excited to be able to share that with you.

Speaker 1:

So if you would like to immediately start to shift things, if you would love to join the low-level behavior bootcamp, then head to the-unteachablescom forward, slash LLBB for low-level behavior bootcamp or click the link in the show notes. I'll drop it there as well, and if you're in the behavior club, you will automatically get this training included, so you don't need to lift a finger. I've got you there. But I really can't.

Speaker 1:

I think in hearing my voice that I am so passionate about these things and I can't wait to share this with you and I can't wait to support you, whether you're getting that support through the bootcamp or whether you're just following along on the podcast. I can't wait to offer you this support because you freaking deserve it, and I really do hope that this episode gave you just a little bit of those foundational kind of things in your mind going oh, like little light bulb moments going. Oh okay, something's not quite right here about how we're approaching things and I'm really curious to hear more. I really do hope it's been a good springboard into what is to come next. Okay, my wonderful teacher friends, I will see you next week, but until then, take care.

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Claire English

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