Student behaviour always seems to become particularly problematic round the Term 3 mark, doesn’t it?
It seems to be an annual occurrence now that Term 3 is when student behaviour becomes particularly problematic. For many teachers and school leaders, the situation is verging on unbearable.
One of the more, frankly, dysfunctional ways that educators have typically approached this challenge is to gather the countless undesirable behaviours beneath a single banner, such as Respect, and try to deal with it through what I call knowledge transfer to the students about that banner.
And, frankly again, I reckon teachers everywhere are fed up with painting Respect murals, running Respect coloured theme days (since when has respect had a colour anyway?) and having students complete impressive Respect posters… before watching the student with the best mark on their poster wander into the yard to whack another student across the back of the head with a rolled-up Respect poster.
Let me be clear, the character-building imperative is different to the academic imperative of a school. I’m in favour of a knowledge rich curriculum, but treating character development as content to be delivered is a waste of time… no matter how ‘positive’ the program claims to be or how cool the sporting stars are who endorse it.
So, stop it.
It’s time for you as educators to be trusted with the inconvenient truths about behaviour:
- The truth about how many of our current systems/cultures/processes encourage student dishonesty and lying.
- The truth about how authoritarian and judicially inspired regimes exhaust already overwhelmed teachers.
- The truth about the big mistakes schools perpetually make when panicked into action about declining student behaviour standards.
- The truth about how rear facing ‘back to basics’ approaches are having less and less impact with today’s young people.
- The truth about the brain science and social psychology that clearly point to a much more effective and efficient approach.
Want to know more?
It’s a pretty big topic, so I’m going to run a one-hour webinar on Tuesday 3 September at 4pm AEST called The Truth about Student Behaviour.
Hear what the gurus and know-it-alls aren’t telling you about our student behaviour challenge.
It’s free, and I reckon you should come along.
Keep fighting that good fight,
P.S. Shout out to all those Principals reading this out there on National Principal Day. I am so grateful for you. I know your challenges because I’ve seen them. I’ve felt them. Thank you for showing up every day for our kids and thank you for the critical role you play in building our citizens of tomorrow.
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